7/1 , THEODORE ROOSEVELT, PRESIDENT WILLIAM iioKINLEY. Life and Distinguished Services OF William McKinley +/ Our Martyr President BY MURAT HALSTEAD FAMOUS JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR As Prepared by Him in 1896 and 1900 in "I,ife and Distinguished Services of William McKinley" and "Victorious Republicanism" WITH INTRODUCTION BY SENATOR CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW AND SPECIAL CHAPTERS BY GENERA^ C. H. GROSVENOR, COLONEL ALBERT HALSTEAD, AND THE LATE SECRETARY OP STATE, JOHN SHERMAN MEMORIAL EDITION, OCTOBER, 1901 TOGETHER WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE PRESIDENT'S DEATH AND BURIAL, BY A. J. MUNSON AUTHOR AND EDITOR ILLUSTRATED WITH MANY HALF-TONE VIEWS AND PORTRAITS MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY H. I,. BARBER. PUBLISHERS' INTRODUCTION. Our country has been singularly fortunate in having had, at nearly all times, some one states- man whose honesty and wisdom strengthened him to check the disturbing elements of mere poli- ticians, and guide them in channels where serious harm could not be done. On the republic's scroll of fame there is no name that shines with greater lustre because of these qualities than that of William McKinley. A statesman of many parts, 1 and capable in all, whose ear was ever attuned to the voice of the people, and whose deepest solici- tude was their welfare, he was an ideal leader in whom the people trusted, and in whom faith was not abused. The career of William McKinley was -exem- plary. His personal virtue, his purity of charac- ter, his honesty of motive, his patriotic purpose, his loyalty to right, his love of justice, his spirit of mercy, endeared him to the people, so that when he was struck down by the assassin they felt the blow as if it had been struck at them* selves. The record of such a life and such a career de- serves a permanent form as is given by this vol- ume. In presenting the story of the martyr president's life, the publishers have sought the aid of some of the men who knew him best, and who have generously added valuable information to the great storehouse possessed by the author. A portion of this volume was written by Mr. Halstead, at the time Mr. McKinley was first nom- inated for the presidency, and being here pre- sented as then written it shows the wonderful ac- curacy of the author's prophecy at that time and how the estimate he then placed on Mr. McKin- ley's popularity and ability has been verified by later events and the action of the people. No writer is as well qualified to write of Mr. McKinley 's life and work as is Mr. Halstead. Not only was he personally and intimately ac- quainted with Mr. McKinley during the latter's public career, but for half a century he has been engaged in making through the press a public record of current events. During half of that time Mr. McKinley was in active public life and his advancement and leadership were observed by the author with the keenest interest. It is hoped the book will aid in commemorating the noble life of the martyr president. THE PUBLISHERS. AUTHOR'S PREFACE. ON the day before Major McKinley was nom- inated for the Presidency, an artist distin- guished for the fetching touch of his pencil in catching and fixing likenesses in a few lines, stood in the door of a room where the Major was seated, and never having before seen the famous face, was regarding it with personal and professional intensity, when an acquaintance approached him and said, " Have you been introduced to the Governor ?" " No," said the artist ; " not yet, presently gladly. Let me study him a moment unbeknown, just as he is. Why there is no picture that does him justice. I am right glad to see him when he has no idea of a possible sketch, and no thought of himself. I did not think so, but he is a great man. He is splendid, and there is no one like him in the country. Why did any one ever say he was not a strong man ?" The artist perceived at a glance what all who study Major McKinley find out that he is a strong man and a great one. He is a fortunate combination of excellent, admirable, and lovable traits and qualities. Alike in his boyish patriotism, adventure and bravery in war, and the experiences of his mature years io 9 10 AUTHOB'S PEEFACE the National Congress, and the straightforward dis charge of executive duty as Governor of a great State, there has been the heroic simplicity, unselfish and constant, that has attracted the attention and populai favor of ever-widening circles of his fellow-citizens, until his glory has become a precious possession of the American people, and inspired with it they did not wait for the stated organizations to move, before they proclaimed in many unmistakable ways that he was their candidate for the Presidency, and the National Convention of the Eepublican party, as a representative assembly, ratified the public will. The life of McKinley shows the stronger and more graceful lines with greater strength and grace the better it is known. The office of his biographer is one of grateful satisfaction. His record is clear. There is no line for love to lament or for charity to cover no chapter for the advocate to blot or the diplomat to obscure. This is one of the rarest of lives, shining in every part with the inner light of the truth that is honor's self; and the radiance of un- clouded day reveals only stainless symmetry, and the harmony of open motives with consummate achieve- ment. He could not advance to the elevation he occupies without encountering enmity and combat- ting imputation ; but no charge was ever contrived that he had other fault than that of friendliness per- haps too forgiving, or of confidence too generous. He is a man who will go on growing in the affection of the gentle and the estimation of the AUTHOR'S PKEFACE 11 judicious. The potency of his character and intel- lect and the kindliness of his heart, declare in his presence, that the favorite disparagements in which his assailants indulge, the conventional accusations of partisan warfare, are but fictions that are frivolous. The verdict of the artist, that he is a strong, great man, will be confirmed by all the people, when the performance of the task they appoint for him becomes history. MUKAT HALSTEAD. CONTENTS. Publisher's introduction , 1 Author's preface 9 Introduction 18 CHAPTER I. Personal sketch of Hon. William McKinley by Hon. John Sherman 27 CHAPTER II. Ancestry Youth In the army Student of law Prosecuting attorney Home life 42 CHAPTER III. McKinley in Congress The rapid growth of his national reputation Became the champion of protection First in a National Convention 63 CHAPTER IV. First experience as a candidate for the Presi- dency Trying times and personal triumph in Chicago Pros- perity under the McKinley law Gerrymandered out of Con- gress Governor of Ohio 77 CHAPTER V. McKinley's career in few words The charm of his personal character His habits of labor Devotion to friends and family 99 CHAPTER VI. McKinley not a man of one idea His superior dis- tinction as a Protectionist has caused him to be erroneously accused of exclusive devotion to that subject The great range of his public speeches and addresses A superb tribute from General Grosvenor, giving a list of subjects 121 CONTENTS 13 PAGE CHAPTER VII. McKinley on. Civic Patriotism Address at Rochester, N. Y. Studying conditions of government Public opinion the basis Zeal after election The people's business Duty of business men Manufacturing interests Our best market An extraordinary spectacle 134 CHAPTER VIII. The lessons of heroic lives McKinley a patriot Oration Piety and patriotism Lessons of heroism Influ- ences of Chautauqua A fighting patriot The grand review A generous eulogy Illustrious names 167 CHAPTER IX. McKinley and money Nominated for Governor The sound money battle A full dollar Not willing to chance it Two yard-sticks Struggle against inflation A high compliment Opposed to unlimited coinage Treasury Report 178 CHAPTER X. The Money Standard questions have been settled in and by the Republican party Silver legislation in brief How the country was saved from the silver standard John Sherman and William McKinley have marched together The Hon. Charles Emory Smith's exposition of this question The unexampled supply of gold is solving the money ques- tions for the people and abolishing its issue 194 CHAPTER XI. William McKinley as a campaigner Speaking to fifteen millions of people -Making one thousand speeches- Constitution of iron Wondrous vitality Magnetic power Excellent memory Good listener Making converts Policy of Protection the hope of America 226 CHAPTER XII. McKinley's advice to boys The enterprising boy Interviewing Major McKinley Boy's own account of 14 CONTENTS. PAGE it Painting up the town Looks like Napoleon Fatherly advice An important question 241 CHAPTER XIII. The contrasted conditions Between Repub- lican protection and prosperity and Democratic meddling, disorganizing industry and forcing hard times, displayed in speeches by McKinley in 1892 and in 1895 A plea in Boston for protection and prosperity 253 CHAPTER XIV. Some views on public questions Humorous speeches The feeder of Great Britain A leap in the dark- Give the officials scope Importance of agriculture Arbitra- tion Respect and retrospect Let England take care of her- self 296 CHAPTER XV. Liberty and Labor 313 CHAPTER XVI. Mrs. McKinley at home The great Protection- ist's wife Strong despite physical weakness Shares all her husband's burdens "Ever happy when surrounded by friends, children and roses." 339 CHAPTER XVII. McKinley on the day of his nomination His good nerve and thoughtful courtesies He was quiet through the storm and gave the good news with kisses to his wife and mother 355 CHAPTER XVIII. Major McKinley acknowledges and accepts his nomination ,. 371 CHAPTER XIX. Salient extracts from Major McKinley's ad- dresses to representative delegations 407 CHAPTER XX. McKinley's inaugural address A lofty appeal to all patriotic Americans for the prompt solution of the great and pressing problems of the National Government 430 CONTENTS. 15 PAGE CHAPTER XXI. The Philadelphia convention President McKinley endorsed by his unanimous nomination for a sec- ond term Gorernor Roosevelt the choice for Vice-President. 446 CHAPTER XXII. Senator Lodge's speech Permanent Chairman of the Eepublican Convention outlines the position of Repub- lican party A scholarly effort and a concise statement 456 CHAPTER XXIII. Republican Platform of 1900 Document of remarkable scope and certainty Defines the party's position on every issue Adopted as read 472 CHAPTER XXIV. McKinley's later days Elected and inaugu- rated President a second time Triumphal tour through the South and the West, ended by Mrs. McKinley's illness 483 CHAPTER XXV. President McKinley's assassination Presi- dent's visit to the Pan-American Exposition His great speech Shot by Anarchist Leon Czolgosz A week in the balance 487 CHAPTER XXVI. Death of President McKinley Dies peacefully at 2:15 A. M., Saturday, September 14 Fond farewell of hus- band and wife Last words, "Nearer, My God, to Thee." 512 CHAPTER XXVII. Burial of President McKinley Private Funeral Services Lying in state at Buffalo and Washington Interment at Canton 518 CHAPTER XXVIII. Trial and execution of assassin -. 533 CHAPTER XXIX. Theodore Roosevelt Sketch of his life 539 ILLUSTRATIONS. Theodore Roosevelt ) Frontispieces Wm. McKmley $ McKinley at Eighteen 21 McKinley When Elected to Congress 22 Hon. Wm. McKinley's Residence 39 Hon. Wm. McKinley in His Study 40 Mrs. William McKinley 57 Mrs. McKinley's Room 58 Hon Wm. McKinley's Father 75 Hon. Win. McKinley's Mother 76 Residence of the Late J. A. Stanton, Mrs. McKinley's Father. . . 93 First M. E. Church at Canton 94 The White House, Ill Admiral George Dewey 112 Department of State 129 Convention Hall, St. Louis, Mo 130 Republican Convention Hall at Philadelphia 147 Hon. John Sherman 148 Hon. Thomas B. Reed. 165 Hon. Chauncey M. Depew 166 Hon. Matthew Stanley Quay 183 Hon. Stephen B. Elkins 184 Hon. Chag. Emory Smith 201 Hon. Levi P. Morton 202 Hon. Mark Hanna ! 219 Hon. C. H. Grosvenor 220 Hon. Geo. F. Hoar 237 16 ILLUSTRATIONS 17 PAGE Hon. W. B. Allison 238 Hon. Benjamin Harrison 255 Hon. R. Proctor 256 Late Vice -President Garret A. Hobart 273 Senator Win. E. Mason 274 Senator Cushman K. Davis 291 Senator Henry C. Lodge 292 Andrew Carnegie 309 Hon. Hazen S. Pingree 310 Hon. E. O. Wolcott 327 Hon. John Wanamaker 328 Hon. Lyman J. Gage 345 Hon. John D. Long 346 Gen. Lew Wallace 363 Ex-Secretary of State Day 364 Hon. William P. Frye 381 S. P. Dole, Ex-President Hawaiian Republic 382 Murat Halstead 399 President and His War Cabinet 400 Military Heroes of Santiago 417 Naval Heroes of Santiago 418 INTRODUCTION. MAJOR WILLIAM McKINLEY requires no introduction to the people of the United States. His name and fame are in every American home. It is well that the details of a career so full of inspiration should be put jn permanent form, and this has been admirably done in this volume by the accomplished author. Public men fade rapidly from even contemporary memory. Only those who are so identified with a great cause or principle, that the man and the measure are one in the popular mind, can hope to survive the tread of the ever advancing column of the ambitious and successful. This rare distinction belonged fifty years ago to Henry Clay and now to Governor McKinley. Protection for American industries and McKinley are synonymous terms. Heroes and statesmen are admired and loved for some striking characteristic. General Jackson has 18 19 beeu the idol of a great partyTor more than half 8 century, not for the ideas he gave the organization, but because he was " Old Hickory." " I will fight it out on this line if it takes all summer," expressed the indomitable and resistless purpose of Grant. The immortal speech at Gettysburg condensed the patriotism and pathos of Lincoln. The triumph of McKinley over obstacles in a career which would have been insurmountable for a weaker man has been due to his absolute sincerity and loyalty. His clear brain and warm heart are always in accord. His sentiment is subordinate to his judgment, but when his mind is made up his emotional nature gives a contagious enthusiasm to his efforts which secures devoted followers and lends a living interest to the discussion of the driest subjects. A boy of eighteen, teaching school to earn money for a college education and deeply imbued with the intense anti-slavery and union sentiment of Ohio, he followed the flag to the front when Lincoln called for volunteers. As soon as he was satisfied that lib- erty and the Republic could only be saved by fight- ing for them, his life belonged to his country. It is always difficult to rise from the ranks, and for a beardless boy well-nigh impossible. But in the eighteen months during which he carried a musket he was attracting the attention of the officers of his regiment and such a regiment ! Its Colonel, Gen- eral Rosecrans, was promoted to the command of the Armies of the Tennessee and the Cumberland. Its 20 INTRODUCTION Lieutenant - Colonel, Stanley Matthews, became United States Senator and one of the Judges of that august tribunal, the Supreme Court. Its Major, Rutherford B. Hayes, was elected Governor of Ohio and President of the United States, and soon the successor of Hayes in the Majority of the gallant Twenty-third will also be the Chief Magistrate of this Republic. Our army was retreating down the Valley of Virginia ; brigade after brigade of ex- hausted troops passed a battery of four guns which had been abandoned in the road. " The boys will haul them," said McKinley, and responding to his call and example his comrades did. He was in a safe place as Commissary Sergeant, two miles from the field at the Battle of Antietam. His business was to guard the rations until called for. Soldiers fight far better on full than empty stomachs, and so thought this fearless and practical Commissary Sergeant, and as evening fell two mule wagons loaded with food and hot coffee were going, under heavy fire from the enemy, straight for the boys at the front, and the driver of the first wagon, and the one which got through, was Sergeant McKinley. He was the staff officer selected to carry an order to a regiment in a perilous position to join the main column. It was believed that no one could ride across the enemy's front and reach his destination alive. The gallant Major never hesitated, but quietly and quickly obeyed orders and saved the regiment. These battle incidents, selected from many, indicate and reveal llu* McKINLEY AT EIGHTEEN. WILLIAM McKINLEY WHEN ELECTED TO CONGRESS. 23 man, never fool-hardy nor boastful nor rash, but with intuitive genius grasping the situation and with serene confidence meeting wisely its requirements, regardless of consequences or perils to himself. Governor McKinley was born and has passed his life in that manufacturing district of his native State which is a hive of varied industries. From early youth he has witnessed and felt the seasons of employment and idleness which come to the work- ers in mills and factories. He had participated with his play-fellows and companions in the joyous con- ditions which attend the humming spindles, the whirl of machinery, and the blaze of the furnaces, and his heart had been wrung by association with strong men suffering and seeking only work, and their sons no longer able to be at the district school. He pondered deeply over the questions suggested by such occurrences, and eagerly sought remedies for the fluctuations which involved capital and labor and the employers and employes in common ruin. With Washington and Hamilton, with Webster and Clay, he came, not alone, as they did, by the cold deduc- tions of reason, but also by observation and experi- ence, to the conclusion that the solution of our in- dustrial problems and the salvation of our productive industries could only be had by the policy of a Pro- tective Tariff. As Union and Liberty had been the inspiration of his courage and sacrifices as a soldier, so now America for Americans became the active priucijr J ' his efforts as a citizen. A century of jj4 INTRODUCTION discussion had not enlivened tariff debates. They were the preserves of the " dry-as-dust " speaker and the dread of the orator. This question has been for a century the foremost one in platforms and legisla- tion, but worn threadbare in debate. When Con- gressman McKinley appeared upon the floor of the House of Representatives to voice the aspirations of American labor for work and wages it was like Paul preaching to the Gentiles. The best brains of the country had been advocating the principle, but now brain and heart were united in the cause. Had McKinley done nothing else his popular discussions of tariff questions in Congress, on the stump, and before college commencements would have earned for him the recognition and gratitude of his country- men. His audiences at once learn that they are not listening to a declaimer or a commentator upon academic theories, but they are roused to wild enthu- siasm by the passion and earnestness, the convictions and pleadings of a sincere man, who both knows and feels the wisdom and necessity of the principles he advocates. No man could talk so ably, so often, and so entertainingly upon this well-worn theme unless he was broad-minded and versatile. The fame of Governor McKinley as the most cap- tivating orator on protection issues of this generation has obscured his merits as a speaker of eminence and power upon a wide range of topics. Whether the theme is patriotic or educational, religious or secular, a discriminating eulogy upon a departed IXTBODUCTION 25 statesman or an address before farmers or journalists, we find in the speeches of Mr. McKinley the same thoughtful, courageous, sincere, and lucid thinker. The sweetest and tenderest word in our language is home. The source and centre of all the saving and helpful influences which form American char- acter and determine American action come from the family and fireside. No man could hope to repre- sent our people who failed to embody in his life and in popular appreciation this ideal. Our hearts and sympathies are with lovers, young or old, who are pure and true. The Major is both a young and old lover, and always a lover. The young lady, educated, accomplished," and beautiful, seeking to do something useful in her father's bank, saw the handsome, frank young soldier a lawyer now pass day by day, and he in turn noticed this girl, so different from her companions in the earnest purposes of her life. Heaven blessed the union, and in the early, happy days two children came to brighten their home. First one and then the other was called, and their loss broke the mother's health. The cares of public life, the anxieties of political fortunes, and the triumphs of a brilliant career have never for one moment distracted or disturbed the tender solicitude and affectionate devotion of this best of husbands to the most self-sacrificing, helpful, and appreciative of wives. They are a beautiful example of wedded confidence, and their domestic life a splendid type of the American home. 26 I1VTEODUCTION Our people have always been fortunate in the can- didates presented for their suffrages for that highest position on earth the Presidency of the United States. They never have had a better example of the results of American liberty and opportunity than this brilliant and faithful soldier, this industrious and honest citizen, this wise and practical statesman, this sincere and loyal husband and friend William McKinley. / CHAPTER I. PEBSONAL SKETCH OF HON. WILLIAM MCKINLEY, BY HON. JOHN SHEKMAN. BY request I write this sketch of the life and traits of Hon. William McKinley, nominee of the Republican party for the high office of President of the United States. He was born at Niles, Ohio, January 29th, 1843, and is, therefore, just past fifty-three years of age. He is now in the prime of vigorous manhood, and his powers of endurance are not excelled by any Ameri- can of his age. The best evidence of this is the rfiany campaigns which he has made during his public life in behalf of the Republican party. He has proved his ability and endurance by the number and perfection of the speeches which he has delivered. His education, for reasons that could not be sur- mounted, was limited to the public schools of Ohio, and to a brief academic course in Allegheny College. He taught school in the country and accumulated the small means necessary to defray the expenses of that iort of education. This is the kind of schooling thaf 27 28 has produced many of the most eminent Americans in public and private life. McKinley entered the Union Army in June, 1861, enlisting in the Twenty-Third Ohio Infantry, when a little more than seventeen years of age. This was a noted regiment. Among its earlier field officers may be mentioned General "W. S. Kosecrans, Gen- eral Scammon, General Stanley Matthews, General Rutherford B. Hayes, General Comley, and many other conspicuous men. He served during the entire war, rising from the position of a private to the rank of major. He was a soldier on the front line, served in battles, marches, bivouacs and campaigns, and received the official commendation of his superior officers on very many occasions. He returned to Ohio with a record of which any young man might well be proud, and to which the old soldiers of the country point with enthusiasm now that he is honored by a presidential nomination. There are in the United States at this time more than a million soldiers of the late war who served on the Union side, still living and voting, and they have sons and their relatives, all of whom, taken in the aggregate, become a power in a presidential election. His military career, while he was not in high command, is full of heroic incidents, which are proven not only by contemporaneous publications in the newspapers, but by official reports of his superior officers. He was not only a gallant soldier, full of endurance and personal energy, but he was the calm, judicious staff INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 29 officer, who won the commendations of his superiors by the exhibition of good judgment and wise adminis- trative capacity. Returning from the war he found it necessary to choose his employment for life, and without further schooling he entered earnestly upon the study of law in the office of Judge Poland, and was a careful, faithful, industrious, and competent student. He entered the Albany Law School, and graduated from that institution with high honors. He then began the practice of law to Canton with the same enthu- siasm and devotion to duty which he had always manifested. As a practitioner at the bar he at once exhibited superior qualities, careful, studious, and faithful. He was elected Prosecuting Attorney of his county, and distinguished himself by his learning, fidelity, and efficiency in the discharge of his duties to the public and his clients. He was elected a member of the 45th Congress, and served in that Congress and the 46th, 47th, 48th, 49th, and was certified as elected to the 50th, but was excluded by a Democratic majority in a con- test, but was returned to the 51st, making his con - gressional career nearly fourteen years. As a mem- ber of Congress he was attentive, industrious, and untiring, working his way gradually until he reached the post of leader of the Republican majority of the 51st Congress. He did not attain this position by accident or by any fortuitous circumstance, but by constant attention to his duties and a careful study of 30 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER the public measures of importance. He was a can- didate for Speaker of the House of Representatives of the 51st Congress. Mr. Reed, the successful can- didate, appointed him as Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and he entered upon the duties incident to that position with great energy and intel- ligence. There was a necessity and a well-defined public demand for tariff legislation in that Congress. The Republican party had come into power by the election of Mr. Harrison, with the understanding and pledge that tariff revision should be accomplished at once. The tariff laws of 1883 required amendment and improvement on account of the lapse of time and change of circumstances. In 1890 it was decided to present a complete revision of the tariff, and to this work McKinley devoted himself with untiring indus- try. He had upon that committee many competent assistants, but the chief burdens necessarily fell upon the chairman. Mr. Speaker Reed was in hearty sympathy and earnest co-operation, and the House of Representatives, on the 21st day of May, 1890, passed the bill known as the McKinley Tariff Bill. Any one turning to the great debate in the House of Representatives pending the passage of that measure in the Committee of the Whole will appreciate the great scope of McKinley 's knowledge of the subject- matter of that enactment. It has never been claimed by McKinley's friends that he was the sole author of the McKinley bill. Not only did he have able supporters and assistants, INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 31 but he yielded to them under all circumstances oppor- tunities for demonstrating their leadership upon sub- jects connected with the bill, and over and over again expressed in public and in private his great admira- tion for the assistance contributed by his colleagues in the Committee. But it is fair to say that Mc- Kinley mastered the whole subject in Congress in detail. He has made the subject of protective tariff a life study. Born and reared within the sounds of the rolling mill, and beneath the smoke and flame of furnaces, and with the full knowledge of the calls of labor and the necessities of capital, he has grown up from childhood a student of the economic ques- tions involved in American legislation, and so he brought to this task in the 51st Congress remarkable knowledge of details and thorough equipment for the great work devolved upon him. McKinley is a man of conspicuous modesty. He never claimed the ex- clusive authorship of this measure, but it must be admitted that he contributed more than any one else to the policy of combining in a tariff law ample pro- vision for sufficient revenue to meet the expenditures of the Government, and at the same time to protect and foster impartially all domestic labor and produc- tion from undue competition with the poorly paid labor of foreign nations. It is often asserted that the McKinley Act failed in providing sufficient revenue to support the Gov- ernment. This is not true, as it did furnish revenue to meet expenditures, but it did not provide a surplus 32 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER equal to the sinking fund for the reduction of the public debt. This was not the fault of McKinley or of the House of Representatives, but of the Senate, which insisted upon reciprocity clauses which largely reduced the revenue provided by that Act. It was the misfortune of the McKinley Act that it took effect at the opening of a Presidential contest, and when "Labor Troubles" excited the public mind. The election of 1892 fell with demoralizing and almost crushing weight upon the Republican party of the country. The law of 1890 was every- where, by Republicans and Democrats, denominated the McKiuley Law, and from ocean to ocean the common people learned to so denominate it. At that time Major McKinley not only did not seek to evade the responsibility of his position, but frankly and openly admitted it, and he counselled courage and fortitude, and gave assurance of his strong faith in the ultimate triumph of the Republican party upon the very principles which then seemed .to be re- pudiated by the people. Addressing himself to an audience of discouraged Republicans in February, 1893, he said : :< The Republican party values its principles no less in defeat than in victory. It holds to them after a reverse as before, because it believes in them, and, believing in them, is ready to battle for them. They are not espoused for mere policy, nor to serve in a single contest. They are set deep and strong INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 33 in the hearts of the party, and are interwoven with its struggle, its life, and its history. Without dis- couragement our great party reaffirms its allegiance to Republican doctrine, and with unshaken confi- dence seeks again the public judgment through pub- lic discussion. The defeat of 1892 has not made Republican principles less true nor our faith in their ultimate triumph less firm. The party accepts with true American spirit the popular verdict, and chal- lenging the interpretation put upon it by political opponents, takes an appeal to the people, whose court is always open, whose right of review is never questioned. " The Republican party, which made its first appear- ance in a national contest in 1856, has lost the Presi- dency but three times in thirty-six years, and only twice since 1860. It has carried seven Presidential elections out of ten since its organization. It has more than once witnessed an apparent condemna- tion of Republican policy swiftly and conclusively reversed by a subsequent and better considered popu- lar verdict. When defeat has come it has usually followed some measure of public law or policy where sufficient time has not elapsed to demonstrate its wisdom and expediency, and where the opposing party, by reason thereof, enjoyed the widest range of popular prejudice and exaggerated statements and misrepresentation." This was the language of a bold leader of public opinion. There was no trimming, no hiding fron> 34 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER responsibility, no shirking from the great question of protection. After the passage of the Tariff Act of 1890 the country rang with the designation " McKinley Law " as a term of reproach. The man who had given his name to that Act when it was denounced, boldly pro- claimed his responsibility for it. When the tide turned in its favor he heartily acknowledged the aid of his colleagues. My familiar association as a Senator from Ohio with McKinley during his service in the House of Representatives enables me to say that he won friends from all parties by uniform courtesy and fairness, unyielding in sustaining the position of his party upon every question on the floor of the House. His leadership was, nevertheless, not offensive or aggressive, and while he carried his points, he was always courteous to his opponents, impersonal in debate, and always ready to concede honest motives to his opponents. At the close of the 51st Congress, and when his services as a Congressman ended, he retired without leaving behind him a single enemy, and yet he had been unswerving in party fealty and uncompromising upon every question of principle. His name became linked with the great measure of that Congress by the common voice of the people of the whole country, and by the world at large. He, shortly after his service in Congress, entered upon the campaign for Governor of Ohio. He was INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 35 nominated by acclamation in 1891. The State had been carried in 1890 by the Republicans by a very close majority, and the drift in the country was against the success of the Republican party. The discussion by Major McKinley in Ohio of the tariff and currency questions was one of the most thorough and instructive of all the debates in that State. It was a counterpart, in large measure, of that of 1875, when, after a series of defeats throughout the country, growing out of the use of irredeemable paper money, President Hayes, then a candidate for Governor of Ohio, boldly advocated the resumption of specie pay- ments, and was elected on that issue. It was a cam- paign where principles won against prejudices. So, in the campaign of 1891, Governor McKiuley, dis- regarding threatened disasters, adhered without com- promise to the platform of principles involved in the tariff legislation of Congress. He neither apologized nor modified his position, and his election by upwards of twenty thousand majority in that year was the significant result. The office of Governor of Ohio was to McKinley a new field of action. It was the first executive office he had ever held. It was his first experience in administrative duty. His success in that department of the public service was as significant and con- spicuous as his experience in the legislative depart- ment of the general government had been. He was Governor during a period involving excite- ment and intense commotion in Ohio the strikes 36 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER among the coal-miners, the organizing of bands of tramps, and the passage across the State of great bodies of turbulent people. All these things tended to precipitate commotion and disorder. His admin- istration as a Governor was without reproach or just criticism. He was faithful to every duty, firm, unyielding, and defiant in the administration of the law. Whe necessary he called out the troops and crushed disorder with an iron hand, but before doing so he resorted to every proper expedient to maintain order and the law. He was diplomatic, careful, per- suasive, and generally restored order and good government. The great depression of 1894-5 brought a condition of suffering to many of the leading industries of the State. Charity was appealed to by the Governor and aid rendered promptly and efficiently. In January, 1896, he retired from the office of Governor at the end of his second term with the hearty good- will of all- the people of the State. He had yielded to no unworthy influence, made duty, honor, integ- rity, and fidelity the criterion of his administration, and he took his place in the ranks of the private citizens of the State in the town from which he had first entered Congress. It has been said that Governor McKinley'g knowl- edge is limited to a single subject, and that his speeches have been confined to the tariff question. This is a great mistake. His studies and speeches embraced a great variety of subjects and extended to INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 37 nearly every measure of importance discussed while lie was in Congress, and his addresses to the people, a long list of which has been published, cover every variety of subjects appropriate to the time and place when they were delivered. On the vital question of the currency he has held the position of the Republican party. When under the stress of war the United States was compelled to use irredeemable money, he acquiesced in conditions he could not change, but every step taken to advance the credit and value of United States notes while he has been in public life he has supported. He supported the Act for the resumption of specie pay- ments and the successful accomplishment of that measure. I know of no act or vote or speech of his inconsistent with this position. He advocates the use of both gold and silver coins as money to the extent and upon the condition that they can be maintained at par with each other. This can only be done by purchasing as needed the cheaper metal at market value and coining it at the legal rate of 16 of silver to 1 of gold, and receiving it in payment of public dues. Gold is now the standard of value. With free coinage of silver that metal will be the standard of value and gold will be demonetized. Governor McKinley is opposed to the free coinage of silver, and has so repeatedly declared in his speeches. McKinley is in favor of honest money. In his last Gubernatorial canvass in Ohio Gover- nor McKinley made this response to the declaration 38 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER of his opponent, ex-Governor Campbell, that he was willing to " chance it" on silver : " My worthy opponent should not ' chance ' any- thing with a question of such vital and absorbing in- terest as the money of the people. The money of America must be equal to the best money of the world. Unlike my opponent, I will not ask you to take any chances on this question ; I will clearly and unequivocally say to you that my choice and influ- ence are in favor of the best money that the ingenuity of man has devised. The people are not prepared to indulge in the speculation of free and unlimited coinage. I " The Republican party stands now, as ever, for honest money, and a chance to earn it by honest toil. It stands for a currency of gold, silver, and paper that shall be as sound as the government and as un- tarnished as its honor. I would as soon think of lowering the flag of our country as to contemplate with patience, or without protest, any attempt to de- grade or corrupt the medium of exchanges among our people. The Republican party can be relied upon in the future, as in the past, to supply our country with the best money ever known gold, silver, and paper good the world over." It has been said that the recent Ohio platform does not declare against free coinage of silver and for honest money. This is not a fair construction of that declaration. The people of Ohio are for that money which has the highest purchasing power, that INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 41 which yields to labor the highest wages to be paid in the best money, and to domestic productions the highest price in the best money, and that is gold coin or its equivalent in other money of equal purchasing power. This, I believe, is also the opinion of Gov- ernor McKinley, and is the doctrine of the Repub- lican party. In his domestic life Governor McKinley is a model American citizen. It is not the purpose of the writer of this sketch to use fulsome language or to comment upon his private life, beyond the mere statement that he is, and has been, an affectionate son of honored parents, his mother still living, a devoted husband, and a true friend. In his family and social life, and in his personal habits, he commends himself to the friends of order, temperance, and good morals. In private he is exemplary, in public life a patriotic Republican. It may be said of him with great pro- priety that no man can more fully represent in his own career than he the great issues upon which the Republican party contested the election of 1896. CHAPTER II. ANCESTRY YOUTH IN THE ARMY STUDENT OF LAW PROSECUTING ATTORNEY HOME LIFE. THE life of William McKinley is that of an American boy who made the best of his opportunities, continually striving for bet- ter, with no vain longings, but a continuous will- ingness to work that he might learn. It is such a story as should be included in every school-book, not only as a lesson and an inspiration to the young, but as a reminder of the possibilities of American citizenship to those called upon to help children in their studies. He was born at Niles, Ohio, January 29th, 1843, and is now in his fifty-fourth year; his hair is but lightly sprinkled with gray, and he is robust and alert. McKinley was descended from a long line of citizens who in times of peace were foremost in industry, and in the days of war always at the front. On his father's side his people were High- 42 43 land Scotch, brawny and brainy men, who needed only the opportunities and enlightenment of educa- tion. They were not of the royalist tribes of Scot- land, but a sturdy set, with a determined though imperfectly developed idea of freedom. Liberty of conscience was real with them, and they left the Highlands for the north of Ireland, seeking indepen- dence, and thence to America for the greater liberty they found and helped to perpetuate. James McKinley, a fine Scotch-Irish lad of twelve years, was the first to come to America. He was the father of David McKinley, the great-grandfather of the Republican candidate for the Presidency. William McKinley came to America with James, and settled in the South, where his descendants have been and are men of distinction. David McKinley was a revolutionary soldier, one of the sort not re- membered in history, except under the grand classi- fication of privates. On his grandmother's side McKinley comes of equally good and sturdy stock, Mary Rose, who mar- ried James McKinley, the second, having come from Holland, where her ancestors had fled to escape religious tyranny in England. The first of the Rose family to emigrate to America was Andrew, who came with William Penn and was one of the repre- sentatives of the thirteen colonies before the rebellion against Great Britain. He owned the land on which Doylestown stands to-day. It was his son, Andrew Rose, who was the father of Mary Rose, the mother 44 McKIKLEY'S EARLY DAYS of William McKinley, Sr. This Andrew Rose did more than double duty in the war for freedom against Great Britain. He fought and made weapons to fight with. This is an. ancestry typically American, one of soldiers and workers for the country's welfare and wealth, and McKinley's good fortune cast his lot in a happy home, where the true mother imbued the children with love of God and the country. In the small town of Niles, in the county of Trumbull, Ohio's great son, whom the Republicans have just nominated for the Presidency, was born in an unpretentious frame building, a house that was partly dwelling and partly country store, the dwell* ing very neat and bright a good home. There was no silver spoon in William McKinley's mouth, though his parents were comfortably situated. The Major was the seventh child, and after him there were born a girl and a boy. If William McKinley is not a member of the "Sons of the American Revolution," he has a perfect right to become one, for he has Revolutionary ances- tors on both sides. His great-grandfather, David McKinley, a Pennsylvanian, served in the Revolu- tionary War, enlisting at twenty-one, serving for one year and nine months. His great-grandfather on his grandmother's side was not only a soldier but he was a good mechanic, and molded bullets and made cannon balls for the men who were fighting for" free- dom. He was enlisted in the Revolution, and added MeKINLEY'S EARLY DAYS 45 to his services the mechanical genius which he possessed. This union of the excellent qualities of a soldier aid r>8chanic was of excellent service to the cause. David McKinley's second son, James, married Mary Kose, daughter of Andrew Rose, Jr., the revolutionary soldier and founder. James McKin- ley raised a large family. Indeed, that seems to have been characteristic of the stock. His second son, William, born in Pennsylvania, was the father of the present Republican candidate for President. William McKinley, Sr., married Nancy Campbell A lison. The Allisons were good stock. They ca^ne from England to Virginia and multiplied, the brunch from which Mrs. William McKinley, Sr., sprung emigrating to Pennsylvania. Major Mc- Kinley's grandfather, Abner Allison, married Ann Campbell, in Green County, Pennsylvania, in 1798. Ann Campbell was of Scotch-German origin. The family moved to New Lisbon, Ohio, where their ten children were born. It was at New Lisbon, in 1827, that William McKinley, Sr., married Nancy Campbell Allison. It may be interesting to state that, could the lines be fully followed out, it would be found that Major McKinley is a third or fourth cousin, possibly fifth or sixth, of William B. Allison, of Iowa, who was a candidate for the Presidency at St. Louis. The Allisons spread through the western country, some of them settling in the vicinity of Chillicothe. It was probably from the Pennsylvania 46 McKINLEY'S EARLY DAYS branch that William B. Allison sprung, for he was born in Ohio, in a portion of the State not far from New Lisbon. It is noticeable that the McKinleys and the fami- lies into which they married were all industrious, hard-working people, religiously inclined, patriots and pioneers a hardy race that baffled with diffi- culty and helped in carving a civilization out of a wilderness. The McKinley-Rose-Allison families were all Pennsylvanians originally, and a people with a trend toward the iron business. The Roses were iron founders, so was McKinley's father, while his mother's people were farmers. The combination of tillers of the soil and molders of the ore was a good one, and added much to the strength of charac- ter and the industrious application that is so charac- teristic of Major McKinley. Mr. and Mrs. William McKinley, Sr., settled first at Fairfield, Ohio, another small town. There, in Columbiana County, which is now a part of the Eighteenth Ohio District, which his son represented for fourteen years in Congress, the father established an iron foundry, and for two decades he had interests in iron furnaces in New Wilmington, Ohio. It is* interesting to observe that McKinley's ancestry makes it possible to trace his character. The lines of activity pursued by his forefathers were such as to leave their impress upon their offspring, and much as Major McKinley owes to his own energy and labor, the tendency to study, to activity, and to McKIXLEY'S EAELY DAYS 47 continued effort was inherited. He had opportu nities for application, and to his credit be it said he did not neglect them. He had openings and chances broader and better than his ancestors, and took advantage of them. It is seen from this short reference to his ancestry that Major McKinley was one of the people born in plain, respectable, and religious surroundings. He did not have the advan- tages nor the embarrassments of a great name, but pro- ceeded by his own effort, by his own continuity of purpose, by study and energy, to make his name great. William McKinley had a good mother. That she is now living, strong and well, with as active an intellect as ever at eighty-seven, is one of his great joys. Vigorous and energetic and strong as his father was, William McKinley, Jr., had the benefit of a mother's training, of her love and devotion, of her gentle guidance, of her religious instruction. Mrs. McKinley, as most mothers of large families, was enabled to do more for her children because they were numerous than had she but one or two. The danger of being spoiled was obviated, and the association with brothers and sisters naturally produced a thoughtfulness for others, a regard for different opinions, and at the same time helped develop an ability to care for himself, since in a family of many members, no matter how harmonious and loving it be, there is always a struggle for supremacy, particularly when there Is an inheritance of aggressiveness. 48 McKINLEY'S EARLY DAYS William McKinley's mother is a Christian woman. She loved her country ways, and trained her son to patriotic views, and willingly offered him for sacrifice when she consented to his entering the army to help put down the rebellion when he was not yet eighteen years old. She has pride in his abilities and world- wide reputation, and is undoubtedly rejoiced that he has been named for the greatest and most exalted office in the world. But such a mother as McKinley has would count this honor as nothing, would be unhappy, if it had been secured unworthily. Truly Mrs. McKinley's greatest happiness lies in the fact that her son is an honorable man and respected even by his enemies, because his life has been free from stain. That good old mother lives in Canton now, happy in her son's preferment, and sad only because her good husband was taken away three years ago, before he could see his son the Presidential candidate of his party. The family moved to Poland from Niles when William McKinley was still young. The mother desired her children to have educational advantages, and there was in Poland, Ohio, an academy which in those days had a wide reputation for the abilities of its teachers. There Major McKinley's sister, Annie, became a teacher and William a scholar. The young boy made friends always by his quiet dignity and serious habits a student always, but withal a manly fellow, who could play as hard as he studied. The McKinley family was held in high esteem in Po~ McKIXLE Y-S EARLY DAYS 49 land, and to this day it is remembered with affection and pleasure. The testimony of old friends, the stories of childhood, are always true indications of the character of a young man, and of McKiuley there- is nothing in criticism said. Everybody liked him as a boy, and, of course, bright and thorough in his work as he was, there were prophecies that he would make a great man. That often happens with like- able children, but, alas ! it too seldom is verified by the future. The town of Poland was an agricultural and min- ing village, only eight miles from Youngstown, and consequently near the Pennsylvania State line, a city in the now prosperous and fertile Mahoning Valley, which is as famous in Ohio as the Connecticut Val- ley is in New England. Poland never grew much. It was too near Youngstown, but the citizens of the town are proud that small as it is, the draft was never enforced there, for the men volunteered from patriotic motives. In fact there were always more volunteers than Poland's quota justified. A boy, while studying in the public schools, the educational advantages he gained made him one of their best friends and advocates. To him the magnificent school system of Ohio is a matter of pride In the days of McKinley's youth men and boys often did chores to help the family along, and that was what McKiuley himself did. McKinley was a clerk in the Poland post-office when he entered the war. He was studying aod marking at the same 50 McKINLEY'S EAELY DAYS time. One had a feeling of pride in the advance- ment of a young man who struggled for his educa- tion. So many have been educated without having to work to pay for it, and have not properly regarded the educational advantages, that there is a tingle of satisfaction in seeing a man succeed who earned his education literally by the sweat of his brow. In June, 1861, two months after the surrender of Fort Sumter, when McKinley was a youth not yet eighteen, there was a meeting at the tavern in Poland, In a small town the hotel is a meeting place, just as a store is in a village. Here the citizens had assembled, thirty-five years ago, to discuss the secession of States. A speaker in a fiery talk asked who would be first to defend the flag. The boys of Poland came forward, one by one, and among them was our next President, a slight, pale-faced young man, of studious mien. Two years before he had joined the Methodist church, and was a member of the Bible-class, who was constantly seeking informa- tion. Before the war, at seventeen, he had gone to Allegheny College, but an illness called him home. He did not return, but took to teaching school a youth instructing scholars at a country school, some of them as old as he. McKinley at that meeting enlisted in Company E of the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteers, a regiment that produced such men as Stanley Matthews, after- ward Senator and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court; President Hayes, and of which W. S k Rose- McKIXLEY'S EARLY DAYS 51 crans was first colonel. He served fourteen months as a private. Speaking of McKinley's connection with the regiment, General Hayes said : " At once it was found that he had unusual character for the mere business of war. There is a quartermaster's department, which is a very necessary and important department in every regiment, in every brigade, in every division, in every army. Young as he was, we soon found that in business, in executive ability, young McKinley was a man of rare capacity, of un- usual and unsurpassed capacity, especially for a boy of his age. When battles were fought or service was to be performed 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, or rain that was in the way of his prompt and efficient performance of every duty.'' That is a great tribute from a great man. Mc- Kinley soon went on General Hayes's staff, when the then major became commander of the regiment, and he served in that capacity for two years, and served so well that Hayes knew " him like a book and loved him like a brother." That friendship continued, and the writer remembers at the funeral of the ex- President, in 1892, Governor McKinley, who was there with his staff, cried like a child when he looked at the body of his old commander and personal friend. At the battle of Antittam on September 17th ; 1862, 52 McKINLEY'S EARLY DAYS probably the bloodiest day of the war, McKinley was commissary sergeant in the Twenty-third Ohio. General Hayes says of his services then : " That battle began at daylight. Before daylight men were in the ranks and preparing for it. Without break- fast, without coffee, they went into the fight, and it continued until after the sun had set. Early in the afternoon, naturally enough, with the exertion re- quired of the men, they were famished and thirsty, and to some extent broken in spirit. The commissary department of that brigade was under Sergeant McKinley's administration and personal supervision. From his hands every man in the regiment was served with hot coffee and warm meats a thing that 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 to the men for whom he was laboring. Coming to Ohio and recovering from wounds, I called upon Governor Todd and told him this inci- dent. With the emphasis that distinguished that great war governor, he said: 'Let McKinley be promoted from sergeant to lieutenant.' And that I might not forget, he requested me to put it upon the roster of the regiment, which I did, and McKinley was promoted." ;; Speaking of his war service, Major McKinley said, just before he retired from the governorship of Ohio: "I always look back with pleasure upon those fourteen months in which I served in the McKINLEY'S EAELY DAYS 53 ranks. They taught me a great deal. I was but a school-boy when I went into the army, and that first year was a formative period in my life, during which I learned much of men and of affairs. I have always been glad that I entered the service as a private and served those months in that capacity." At the battle of Kernstown McKinley was on General Hayes's staff. Crook's corps had been ex- pecting an easy time when it appeared that the enemy was in force at Kernstown, about four miles from Winchester, where Crook's troops were. There had been some misinformation regarding the Con- federate general Early's movements, and the force about to be met was that of Early, which outnum- bered Crook's corps three to one. When the battle began one of the regiments was not in position, and Lieutenant McKinley was ordered to bring it in. The road to the regiment needed was through open fields and right in the enemy's line of fire. Shells were bursting on his right and left, but the boy sol- dier rode on. He reached the regiment, gave the orders to them, and at his suggestion the regiment fired on the enemy and slowly withdrew to take the position where they were assigned. It was a gallant act of the. boy soldier, and General Hayes had not expected him to come back alive. At the battle of Opequan he was on General Hayes's staff still. There he distinguished himself for gallan- try, for good judgment, and military skill. He had '*>een ordered to bring General Duval's troops to join 54 McKINLEY'S EARLY DAYS. the first division, which was getting into battle. There was a question as to the route to take. The young officer knew it intuitively, and, acting on his own responsibility, directed Duval the way to go, and brought the troops up in good style, taking great chances in doing so, but succeeding nevertheless. Other equally courageous and dangerous things the Ohio officer undertook. He served with General Crook as a staff officer later on, and was finally as- signed to duty with General Hancock. He entered the war a private, one of the several hundred thou- sand, a boy of seventeen, and left it a major in the United States Volunteers by brevet, and he earned every promotion by his own skill. Think of it, a major at twenty-one ! Major McKinley still has his brevet commission. It was given him in 1864, and reads : " For gallant and meritorious services at the battle of Opequan, Cedar Creek, and Fisher's Hill." Who signed that? "A. Lincoln." It is a testimo- nial of bravery, of patriotism, and of manliness, and Major McKinley is proud of it. Who blames him ? There are other records more brilliant ; others, but none displayed more courage, and few had equal re- sponsibilities at his age. His horse was shot from under him at Berryville. He can appreciate the hardships of the private soldier's life, for he endured them himself. He knows the worries of the officer, for these also he experienced. He understands the duties of a staff officer, for he was one. There is everything in his record that is creditable, and noth- McKINLEY'S EARLY DAYS 55 ing that is discreditable. H was a typical American citizen soldier. After the surrender at Appomattox, and after he was mustered out, Major McKinley was offered a commission in the regular army. It was a tempta- tion hard to resist, for four years in the army, at the formative period of his life, gave him a love for military service that was hard to overcome. What might have been his career had he remained in the army no one can tell. There is little chance for advancement there, but he would probably have ulti- mately commanded a regiment, and with the prejudice against officers appointed from civilian life he might never have risen higher and perhaps might not have attained that rank. Acting on the advice of his father, he entered civil life. He studied law in Mahoning County, under Judge Glidden, who was one of the noted men at the Stark County bar. Under him MeKinley studied for a year and a half, and his family made sacrifices to enable him to do so. Their unselfish- ness enabled him to go to the Albany Law School, which has developed many men of brain and ability. In 1867, twenty-nine years ago, he was admitted to the bar and chose Canton, then a small town of about 6,000 people, for his home. Canton was not important then, though the county of Stark was destined to develop and prosper under the policy of protection which he advocated. Great manufactories were to develop there, and the Mahoning Valley was 56 McKINLEY'S EAELY DAYS to be smoke laden by the industry and the sky abovt it to be lightened by the blazing chimneys of fur- naces. Major McKinley had been a good debater at school. He was often the winner in such contests, After he got back from the war he entered a polit- ical debate, and was overcome by his opponent. Nat- urally a sensitive man, he was chagrined, and re- solved that never again would there be the oppor- tunity given for a similar defeat. The subject of the debate was protection, and McKinley knew his view was right. Though worsted in the argument, he had no question as to the logic of his reasoning ; but he needed more facts, greater study to support them, and he immediately applied himself to acquiring them. Though a newcomer, he had gained a reputation for legal ability in Stark County, which was Demo- cratic. It appeared as if it would be a herculean task to carry it. McKinley had a natural aptitude for politics, and his life as an attorney tended to increase it. The Eepublicans wanted a candidate for Prosecuting Attorney. Some say McKinley was chosen simply because of his ability, and others that while his capacity was recognized, the Eepublicans did not think the place worth fighting for when de- feat seemed certain, and gave it to McKinley, a new man, as a mark of recognition. Now Major Mc- Kinley never in his life entered a fight to lose it. He never confessed himself beaten. The stem de- MRS. WILLIAM McKINLEY. 59 termination of his ancestors came to him in good stead, and he went into the campaign to win. He was elected Prosecuting Attorney, much to the sur- prise of the Democrats. There he displayed his customary ability, and was renominated, only to be defeated, but the opponent who overcame him won by forty-five votes only. The campaigns for Prosecuting Attorney marked the beginning of McKinley's political career. While practicing law he took an active part in poli- tics, but did not run for office until 1876. He stumped the district and often now speaks with pleasure of his experiences as a young stump speaker. The writer has driven through much of Stark County and Columbiana and Mahoning Coun- ties, which form part of the eighteenth district, and remembers the pride and pleasure which the Major would derive from discussing the old speech- making days, and tell us that he had spoken here and there, and give some incident of that life. Old inhabitants of the district tell of the great demand there was for the young speaker, of his eloquence and control of the subject he handled. They say he spoke as well as a young man as he does now, but that cannot be, for practice has perfected his delivery and enabled him to develop into a great orator. After his first term as Prosecuting Attorney, dur- ing the five years that passed before he ran for Con- gress, Major McKinley secured a large law practice. He prer^'d every case thoroughly, knew every de- 60 McKINLEY'S EAELY DAYS tail, sifted the evidence, examined witnesses to the most minute detail ; in fact, when he went into a trial, he knew all there was to be known of the case he had in hand. It was characteristic of him to study his subject. No one ever found him unpre- pared. He was persuasive as an advocate, for he was eloquent. This natural ability, combined with his thorough understanding of the matter in hand, gave him many victories and made his reputation as a lawyer. The experiences at the bar in Stark County were further preparations for his leadership of the House. It was educational for him. In 1871 he was married to Miss Ida Saxton, whose father was a man of considerable literary ability, and the editor of the Canton Repository, which to this day is an able paper. He was a banker as well. She was thoroughly educated, given a trip abroad, which in the days following the war was an unusual advantage for a young woman, particularly when she came from a State six hundred miles from the sea. After that trip she entered her father's banking house as cashier. She left that to marry William McKinley, Jr. Her father did not like the idea of her marrying, but he said that Major McKinley was the only man he was willing that she should marry. Two girls blessed this union. One died when still a baby, and the other after it had reached four years and had become the joy of the house. Mrs. McKin- ley had been worn by the death of her father, and this additional affliction aided in breaking her health. McKINLEY'S EAELY DAYS 61 She had been a strong young woman, but the cares of motherhood had brought on an illness from which she has never recovered. However, she is stronger since the Major left Congress, and though unable to attend to any great amount of social duties, has many friends, and all who know her admire her for her patience and good spirits, her gentleness and devo- tion, and admiration for her husband. She likes to see her friends and loves children, who know they are always welcome at her house. Mrs. McKinley is an adept with the needle, and she knits well, too. Many clothes and warm mitts and jackets she has made for friends and for the poor. They are .prized greatly by all who get them. Mrs. McKinley travels a deal to be with her husband, and has often heard him speak, as on four or five occa- sions during the gubernatorial campaign of 1893. In that prolonged contest, when the Governor spoke more than three hundred times in eighty out of the eighty-eight counties of the State, he was never too weary after the last meeting on Saturday to take a train for Columbus, or Cincinnati, or Cleveland, or Chicago, where Mrs. McKinley happened to be, that he might spend Sunday with her. It was a beauti- ful devotion, and not at all surprising when the Major's tender care and solicitude for his wife is re- membered. Though an invalid, Mrs. McKinley has been cheer- ful and in trying times brave, never faltering in her belief in her husband and ever ready to cheer him, 62 McKINLEY'S EAKLY DAYS Ill-health is trying and a test of disposition, but Mrs. McKinley has never complained, and has always been resigned. The death of her children, Kate and Ida (the latter was born on Christmas, 1871), was a cruel blow, but both the Major and his wife have borne their sorrow patiently and with Christian spirit. They have sought the happiness that their children would have given in closer union and in the enjoyment of the little ones of others. CHAPTER HI. McKinley in Congress The rapid growth of his National Repute" tion Became the Champion of Protection First in a National Convention. In the five years that followed his retirement from the prosecuting attorneyship of Stark County, Ohio, Major McKinley had grown in popularity and in the estimation of his neighbors. In the centennial year he was brought forward as a candidate for the Republican congressional nomination. L. D. Woods- worth, of Mahoning, was the representative, and there were other candidates, including three from Stark County. That county then elected its dele- gates to the congressional convention by primaries in every township. To the surprise of his opponents William McKinley, who knew, and was known, in every hamlet and town and village and community in the county, carried all the townships but one, and that was so small that it had but one delegate. The Major had been through all the other counties of the old eighteenth district, and in one of them he was born. It was not a difficult matter to secure a majority in these counties, and as a result he was nominated with a cheer on the first ballot. It is not surprising that the old political war-horses 63 64 McKINLEY IN CONGRESS of the district were amazed at this rise of a young man, only thirty-three. McKinley had triumphed, and never afterward was it possible to contest his right to represent that district. He dominated it. The Republican party was proud of him, and though it was not customary in that district, and in fact it is not the habit in any Ohio district, except the one which General Garfield and E. B. Taylor represented for so many years, to name a man for more than two terms. It is this habit that makes Ohio less of a power in the national house than she would other- wise be. A Congressman, as soon as he has learned the ways of Congress and has been there long enough to do good work for his district, is super- seded by some ambitious man, unprepared to do as well as his predecessor ; but the anxiety to become a statesman is so general in Ohio, and there is so much good timber there, that it is not surprising that this should be the case. Major McKinley represented the eighteenth dis- trict for fifteen years. The Democrats gerryman- dered him three times. He had been in the House but two years, one term, when his county was placed in a district that had a Democratic majority of 1,800. Major McKinley stumped the district from one end to the other, and carried it by 1,300 plurality truly a great victory. In 1880 he was again elected. Thus by the time he was thirty-nine he had repre- sented his district in Congress three times. In 1882 the district was again gerrymandered. He had a McKINLEY IN CONGRESS 65 majority on the face of the returns of eight votes. His opponent was named Wallace. Toward the end of the session of that Congress he was unseated by a Democratic House and Wallace given his place. That year, 1882, was not a very bright one for the Republicans. It will be recalled that then it was that Secretary Folger was defeated for Governor of New York by Grover Cleveland, of Buffalo, by a majority of 192,000 votes. This was the beginning of the rise of the man whom McKinley will succeed in the Presidential chair. How remarkable it seems, looking backward, that the ex-sheriff of Buffalo and the ex-mayor of the city of Buffalo should have been chosen Governor over such a tried and true Republican as Folger. However, Mr. Cleve- land is now even more unpopular than the Repub- lican party was when he was elected Governor. Secretary Folger told McKinley in 1882 that he had won a great victory to be returned to Congress at that time. Unseated toward the end of the Forty-eighth Con- gress, McKinley was re-elected to the Forty-ninth, in 1884, by a great majority, and remained in Congress, being a member of the Forty-ninth, Fiftieth, and Fifty-first congresses, being defeated by a wicked gerrymander for the Fifty-second. Slowly but surely he has grown in influence. He had been modest in his first years of congressional life. A young man, full of enthusiasm and study and in- heriting an interest in the industries of the country, 66 McKINLEY IN CONGRESS a natural researcher, he was from the beginning a protectionist. The district he represented was a manufacturing one. He studied its needs, saw where protection was a benefit, and proposed to stand by that cause. That he has done so is known to every- body. He has been nominated for the Presidency because he is a protectionist. He had the insight to see what policy was most important to his country, and, convinced that his view was the proper one, he prepared himself to support it. That he has done so ably even his enemies admit. He knows the in- dustries of the country thoroughly, is informed of business conditions in every section a student of economics, a patient digger for information, a per- sistent questioner regarding conditions everywhere. This is apparent from his wonderful tariff speeches. The tariff is a dull subject at best, but McKinley makes the figures and statistics which encumber it, and ordinarily weary, interesting. His hearers feel that they are a part of himself and accordingly are attracted. There is almost a poetic tinge in his elo- quent tariff speeches. They are, many of them, as good English as is written. Then their facts are un- assailable. It was in his second term in Congress that William McKinley made a reputation as a tariff debater. He had probably addressed the House on other sub- iects, but then he had its attention, and it was appreciated by Judge Kelley, the leader on the "Republican side, tnat a new force had entered Con- McKINLEY IN CONGRESS 67 gress, an able exponent of protection was on the floor. He was not a member of the Ways and Means Committee then, for General Garfield repre- sented Ohio on that committee at that time. Few remember the Wood tariff bill of 1878 a bill in- tended to scale down revenue. McKinley saw that it was a blow to the protective system, that it was a step toward free trade, which he has been fighting ever since. He secured recognition in April of 1878, and addressed the House at length. His speech is very interesting reading now, and surprises even those who are informed of his ability, know his power and grasp of every subject, that he should then, so young and comparatively inexperienced in congressional work, have delivered such an admir- able plea for protection, .such an appeal to the House not to strike down the industries of his district of the country. Every argument he made then is good now against free trade. It was really a wonderful speech, and it made the young congressman from the old eighteenth district a figure in the House. Ever after that when he spoke he received attention. His voice was capable of filling the hall, whose acoustic properties are so poor. He painted the theory of free trade as a dream, a menace, and was roundly applauded when he had finished. That speech made him a reputation that was national. It marked him as the successor of James A. Garfield on the Ways and Means Committee, for Garfield was then a candidate for the Senate, to which, it 68 McKINLEY IN CONGKESS will be remembered, he was elected before the Con- vention of 1880 made him a Presidential candidate. McKinley's Washington life was not a very social one. A man of his industry and studious habits had little time for the frivolities of society. Then his wife's health would not permit him to enter therein. He enjoyed the friendship of President Hayes, who had been his war commander. Mrs. Hayes took an interest in his invalid wife and they were most intimate. Such a woman as Mrs. Hayes, a motherly, lovable, conscientious Christian woman, could not but have been interested in the little Ohio woman, whose husband promised to become such a man of force, and the friendship there made never ended until death claimed the beloved " Lucy " Hayes. But the McKinleys had friends. They were not social leaders probably, though then a congress- man was, if he chose, a factor in Washington society. The wish of the plutocrats had not out- stripped the congressional circle, and wealth was not one of the requirements for a successful Washington career, socially. Every one who had the pleasure of knowing the McKinleys appreciated their refine- ment and attractiveness. They were sought out by many, but preferred a life of comparative seclusion, brightened by the intimate friends who clung around them. When General Garfield retired from Congress, to <3 ' assume the ill-fated Presidency, Major McKinley was his successor on the Ways and Means Committee. McKIXLEY IN CONGRESS 69 Older members of that brainy set of men were glad to have him one of them, and Judge Kelley, the leading Republican, the great exponent of pro- tection, who earned for himself the title of "pig- iron " Kelley, welcomed the Ohio man. It was recognized that McKinley had a thorough and com- plete understanding of the subject under discussion and the tariff men were rejoiced to have their forces so strengthened. There can be no doubt that Major McKinley ad- vocated protection because he was convinced it was necessary for the prosperity of the country. It was to him a public duty to support it. He had mas- tered all its details, knew the theory, and was always able to show that the free-trade ideas meant destruc- tion if put in force. The experience of the country under the present tariff reform measure, which Mr. Cleveland himself said was tinged with party perfidy and party dishonor, show conclusively that he was right. The people believe he is, and for that reason they demanded his nomination. Nothing could stop it. The wave of popular approval would not be hindered. It swept on and overwhelmed all oppo- sition. In 1882, as a member of the Ways and Means Committee, he urged that the Tariff Commission be appointed, and made an able speech in its support. The results of that Commission are known. McKin- ley was one of those who helped frame the tariff bill of 1883, which was in force for seven years, and was 70 McKINLEY IN GOK^JBESS an admirable act. It was partially his work, and in the debates on that measure he attained additional reputation. He opposed reduced taxation, and showed clearly that the farmers did not want it. Who now will tell a farmer that a tariff hurts him ? Who will urge any agriculturist to support tariff reform when he has seen the injuries to agriculture, the reduction in the price of farm commodities such as potatoes, by reason of lessened duties thereon ? McKinley knew what was best for the formers then, and they now support him earnestly. After his con- nection with the Tariff Act of 1883 Major McKin- ley was admitted as the leading tariff advocate, its best exponent. Older men retired in his favor. He had won his promotion by merit, by work, and he deserved it. It was hard, earnest effort that ad- vanced him. Naturally bright and intellectual, he improved his opportunities, and succeeded where men who might be more brilliant, but less studious and solid, failed. The Act of 1883 was largely McKinley 's. He and Judge Kelley had worked on it together, and each sought to give the other credit for it. The Morrison horizontal reduction bill came up the next year, and here McKinley fought free trade, the menace of reduced duties, with energy. He battled in vain, because the Democracy was in the majority in the House, but his speeches, his arguments, his figures, his logic, added to his great reputation. In. this fight Judge Kelley and Major McKinley were .McKINLEY IN CONGRESS 71 again intimately associated. They labored together for protection, for the preservation of our indus- tries, and staved off the era of free trade the ex- periment with a lower tariff that seemed inevitable. The Morrison bill proposed to reduce the duties in the Act of March 3d, 1883, by twenty per cent. This was the bill at which the Democrats had laughed because a Tariff Commission had aided in framing it. It was a singular anomaly that the Democrats should have brought in this measure, the one they had assaulted so vigorously, in exactly the same shape as it had been enacted, with the exception of the horizontal reduction of duties. The Morrison bill never became a law, thanks to a Republican Senate, but it gave Major McKinley an opportunity to display his wonderful command of the tariff subject, to patriotically oppose the destruc- tion of industrial America. It is a striking contrast the fates of Morrison and McKinley. Morrison was defeated for Congress after that measure had passed the House, and became the chairman of the Commission on Interstate Commerce. McKinley was defeated for Congress after the passage of his tariff bill, and became Governor of Ohio. Morrison has been a Presidential aspirant ever since, and no one has recognized him except a few personal friends, and in his own brain alone has the Presidential bee developed. McKinley never permitted a bee to buzz until the people demanded that he should run. Twice he declined the nomination, or rather refused 72 McKINLEY IN CONGEESS to permit his name to be used when a nomination was possible. Up to 1884 Major McKinley had been known chiefly for his connection with Congress. He had by that time a national reputation, and was appreciated as a rising man. He had not, however, entered into the domain of national politics, nor taken any con- siderable part in Ohio affairs. He had simply rep- resented his district in Congress, but Ohio was be- ginning to claim him as one of her great men. In 1884 he was made permanent chairman of the Repub- lican State Convention at Cleveland. He displayed satisfactory parliamentary abilities there. He was for Elaine for President, representing the sentiments of his constituents. Sherman was a candidate, but Ohio, as usual, was divided, and was frittering away her strength. The Elaine men exceeded in their en- thusiasm, but the Sherman men seemed to be better organized. They were managed by competent poli- ticians, such as have always surrounded John Sher- man in his native State. At that convention Mc- Kinley made a' speech which was as admirable as are all his deliveries. It is perhaps worth reproducing in part. He, in purely extemporaneous form, drew a comparison between Republicanism and Democ- racy, that is as true to-day as it was twelve years ago. " The difference," said he, " between the Republi- can and Democratic parties is this the Republican party never made a promise which it has not kept, and the Democratic party never made a promise 73 which it has kept. Not in its whole history, com- mencing from 1856 down to the present hour, is there a single promise made by the Republican party to the people that it has not faithfully kept. And then it is not a laggard party. If there is any one thing the people like, it is courage. They neither like laggards nor do they like shams ; and the Dem- ocratic party is the embodiment of both." How true are those words to-day, how aptly they describe the Democracy. It was at this convention that Major McKinley showed stern determination to be true to a friend. With Elaine men and Sherman men fighting for the supremacy there, the contest was necessarily for the delegates-at-large. McKinley had promised friends who desired to go as delegates that he would not be a candidate. When Judge King of Mahon- ing named McKinley, the Major, from the platform, withdrew his own name. There was a sentiment for McKinley which would not be stilled. King of Muskingum put a motion to elect McKinley a dele- gate, but McKinley, as chairman, declared the motion out of order. General Grosvenor, since famous for his accurate figures of the progress of the McKinley boom for the Presidency, put the motion again and held it was carried. Again did McKinley rule it out of order. His decision was appealed from. He was not sustained, and General Grosvenor put the motion still again to elect Mo- Kinley delegate-at-large, and it was done. McKinley 74 ' McKINLEY IN" CONGRESS would not have it, and again he was overruled, f i spite of his appeals. Finally there was a roll-cail and, McKinley insisting that his name be not voted for, was elected. In that Chicago convention Mc- Kinley made a name. ^ He assumed the duties of leader of the Blaine men at one time and prevented an adjournment that was hostile to Blaine and Elaine was nominated. He wrote the platform that year, as chairman of the committee on resolutions. This was his first leadership in national politics. He had made himself famous in that convention. HON. WM. McKINLEY'S FATHER. HON. WM. McKINLEY'S MOTHER. CHAPTER IV. erperfcmce M ft candidate for the Presidency Tryteg time* tai iHsrsonai triumph in Chicago Prosperity tinder the MeKinley e w -Gerrymandered out oi Congress Ooreraor at ObJa In 1888 Ohio went to Chicago solid for John Sherman. Difficulties had been patched up and Ohio for the first time in years was unifed. Two Ohio men were particularly prominent in their efforts for Sherman. These were Foraker and Mc- Kinley. Each was considered at different times during the convention as a Presidential possibility. McKinley was more prominent in that connection and ha there declined to be presented as a candidate. It will be recalled that there were a number of Presi- dential candidates, including Sherman, Harrison, Gresham, Depew, Allison, and Alger. The contest was rather prolonged. There was a strong senti- ment for Elaine, but he prevented any action on his name by a cablegram from Scotland. During the fight Ohio stood solidly for Sherman. Foraker was chairman of the delegation. McKinley was recog- nized as a force, and "was roundly cheered whenever he came into the hall. 78 McKINLEY'S ACTIVE YEARS As the contest went on it seemed as if a solution would be difficult. The convention was becoming weary of balloting. There was an admirable chance for a dark horse. When it came to the sixth ballot some one voted for the Major. The convention cheered. Then he was given seventeen votes by a State following. It looked as if McKinley would be the man. It seemed impossible to prevent it. It was recognized that he was able and brilliant, safe and sound on all political subjects. His labor for Sherman, his pleas for the Ohio Senator as he went from delegation to delegation, had won him support for himself. It was a most trying time for the Ohio protection- ist. He was then but forty-five years old, and seemed younger, as with pallid face he stepped on a chair. His frock coat was buttoned tightly around him. His eyes flashed forth the fire that is so character- istic of them, when he is in earnest. There was a stern look in his face. The convention was silent. The buzz had ceased. Delegates and spectators leaned forward to catch what he was about to say. There was a feeling that he was about to relinquish the Presidential prize, that he was to sacrifice ambi- tion to gain renown by faithfulness to a trust. As he spoke his voice rang through the great audi- torium. There was a defiant tone to it. It was commanding. It was irresistible. He said : " Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention : I am here as one of the chosen representatives of my McKIXLEY'S ACTIVE TEAKS 79 State. I am here by resolution of the Republican State Convention, commanding me to cast my vote for John Sherman for President, and to use every worthy endeavor to secure his nomination. I ac- cepted the trust, because my heart and judgment were in accord with the letter and spirit and purpose of that resolution. It has pleased certain delegates to cast their votes for me for President. I am not in- sensible to the honor they would do me, but in the presence of the duty resting upon me I cannot remain silent with honor. I cannot consistently with the wish of the State whose credentials I bear, and which has trusted me ; I cannot consistently with my own views of personal integrity, consent, or seem to con- sent, to permit my name to be used as a candidate before this convention. I would not respect myself if I could find it in my heart to do or to permit to be done that which could even be ground for any one to suspect that I wavered in my loyalty to Ohio, or my devotion to the chief of her choice and the chief of mine. I do not request I demand that no dele- gate who would not cast reflection upon me shall cast a ballot for me." That settled it. McKinley had won. He received no more votes and Harrison was named on the seventh ballot. An eye-witness remembers going into the Ohio headquarters before this incident had occurred. There was talk of McKinley for Presi- dent that night. The Major was in an inner room. He looked tired. There were lines of care on his 80 McKINLEY'S ACTIVE YEARS face. It was on the Sunday prior to the final ad- journment. Everywhere outside there was excite- ment. Bands were playing and clubs marching. McKinley was outwardly calm. It was apparent that he was bothered though. He talked for ten or fifteen minutes, when it was suggested that he might be nominated, and said : " No, that will not happen here. I came here for John Sherman, I shall stand by him until he is nominated or defeated, but I shall not be named." It was on that night that he visited the New Jersey delegation. He had heard that the New Jersey delegation proposed to vote for him. He intended to prevent it, and made a stir- ring appeal to the chairman of that delegation. The Major spoke with suppressed feeling until he said in finishing : " Rather than that I would suffer the loss of that good right arm. Yes, I would suffer death. To accept a nomination, if one were possi- ble, under these circumstances, would inevitably lead to my defeat, and it ought to lead to my defeat." The last words sounded like a clarion. Then the Major asked the New Jersey delegation to vote for Sherman. THE McKINLEY BILL. Major McKinley took an especially prominent part in opposing the Mills bill when it was consid- ered during the Fiftieth Congress. This was an ultra free- trade bill. There was no horizontal re- duction about it. It was plain free trade. Mills McKIXLEY'8 ACTIVE YEABS 81 came from Texas, a State without industries. He cared little for the industrial communities. He was a theorist, and a more rabid free-trader than Profes- sor Wilson. The fight in the House lasted for a long time. Carlisle was Speaker, and naturally friendly to the bill. Randall was opposing it. McKin- ley was, too. As a member of the Ways and Means Committee, he showed up its fallacies, its menace to the country. He could not defeat it, because the Democrats were in the majority, but, nevertheless, he made many telling points. It was a great fight. Randall was his friend. They had been drawn to- gether by a community of interests, for each was a protectionist. One was trying to prevent his party from taking the wrong road, while the other was leading his in the right direction. McKinley, during that fight, displayed better than ever his wonderful ability as a debater, and many is the Democrat whom he disturbed by his arguments for protection. Mr. Randall was closing the general debate on the bill the last day before the debate under the five-minute rule. Major McKin- ley was to follow him. Randall had not finished his speech when his time was up. His friends asked for an extension of time, but Colonel Mills objected. He feared the piercing arguments of his colleague. Here it was that McKinley showed his characteristic courtesy. He arose and yielded his time to the able Democratic protectionist. The November elections of 1888 had given the 82 McKINLEY'S ACTIVE YEABS Republicans a majority in the House. The free- trade folly of the Democracy had beaten it. Mr. Reed and Major McKinley were among the candi- dates for Speaker. After a hot fight Mr. Reed won, and appointed Major McKinley as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, thus making him leader of the House. Judge Kelley had died, and it was but natural that McKinley, the great protec- tionist, should have been made chairman of that important committee. During the twelve years of his congressional life he had been preparing for the opportunity. He had mastered the tariff, and was ready for the work before him. The Act of 1883 was producing too much revenue. The changes of conditions since its passage had made it necessary to revise it. It was to be revised by hands friendly to protection. Major McKinley was the man to direct the work. The object was to reduce revenue and to equalize duties where necessary, to adjust them to the prevailing conditions, to afford protec- tion to American industries and farmers. For this work Major McKinley gave his time. He labored early and late. The committee gave hear- ings and worked incessantly. Major McKinley did not permit his daily work at the capitol to end that on the tariff. He was busy until midnight and later in his office at the Ebbitt House, studying the question more thoroughly, listening to arguments in favor of certain duties, laying out the plans of the tariff. It was a herculean task. He never swerved. His good McKIXLEY'S ACTIVE YEARS 83 health and regular habits gave him the strength to perform the almost impossible work. Under his direction no interest was permitted to be injured. No duties were fixed without every condition that surrounded them had been considered. The work was thorough. It was honest. The result of this continuous application by Major McKinley and the other members of the committee was that the bill, when finished, was the best, the most complete bill ever produced. The committee was even more thorough in its work than the tariff commission had been. Possibly it may be well to explain that Mr. Cleveland had, prior to the election of the Fifty-first Congress, trans- mitted a free-trade tariff measure to the House. The issue was accepted by the Republican leaders, and it was thereon that General Harrison was elected Presi- 4 , dent, along with the Reed-McKinley Congress. The Republican party that had been a protective institution for some time, but not so much so as the President's message, defining as it did the difference between Republican and Democratic revenue poli- cies, enabled it to become in that campaign. It was to keep the pledge made to the people in 1888, to re- vise the tariff with friendly hands, that Major Mc- Kinley and his committee set to work. The Major, in presenting his wonderful bill to the House, did not feel compelled to discuss at length the difference between the economic policies of the two parties. The people understood them, and with 84 that knowledge had elected that Congress. The bill reduced taxation on internal revenue products over seventy millions, and as McKinley said in offering it to the House for its consideration : " The tariff part of the bill contemplates and proposes a complete revision. It not only changes the rates of duty, but modifies the general provisions of the law relat- ing to the collection of duties. These modifications have received the approval of the treasury depart- ment." The administrative features of the McKinley law there were really two laws, the administrative one being enacted in July, 1890 was really the joint work of McKinley and Senator Allison. Mr. Alli- son had had a bill on that line passed in the Con- gress before, and McKinley took it up and improved on it. It was so admirable in all of its features that it was little changed by the Democrats when they so disastrously passed the sugar-trust-Wilson-Gorman- Brice tariff bill in 1894. It is useless to go into an extended comment on the tariff fight. One thing about the bill that is worth remembering is, that it recognized more fully than had been done before the fact that wherever possible, specific duties are the better, because they prevent un- der-valuatious that fraudulently reduce the revenues, and thus at the same time the rates of duties. The McKinley bill also established an industry. The advance of the duty on tin plate made it possible to manufacture these plates in America. The Demo- cratic campaign orators and others deliberately lied McKIXLEY'S ACTIVE YEAES 85 about this. The McKinley tariff established nearly two hundred mills for the manufacture of tin plate, which had an average of five million boxes a year. The American dinner-pail and the American can- ning factories were benefited by this and would have been even more so had it not been for the reduction of duty on tin plate made in 1894 by the Wiloon bill. Yet, established as they were, they have struggled along somehow or other, though there are fewer mills than there would have been, and they are not producing as much tin plate. That was one great result of the McKinley bill. The Major, in the debate in favor of the bill, called attention to the fact that the protective tariff had never failed It had aided in reducing a debt of $2,750,000,000 at the close of the war at a rate of sixty-two millions each year, or one hundred and seventy-four thousand dollars each day, and made the debt less than one billion. It might be men- tioned here that Grover Cleveland's present adminis- tration has added $265,315,400 to the interest bear- ing debt since it came into power, or more than eighty millions a year, and most of this increase was caused by the Democratic tariff bill's revenue deficiencies. The McKinley bill was amended in the Senate. It is the habit of some people to assume that the Senate had more to do with it than Major McKinley. Without proposing to detract one whit from the reputation of such able men as Senators Allison and Aldrich, who have fought in the Senate the battle of 86 McKIKLEY'S ACTIVE YEARS protection for years, who stood manfully against the Wilson bill and did much to lessen its dangers to industries, it may be said that though amended in the Senate these amendments were in the line of what Major McKinley approved, such as were made neces- sary by conditions. The principle was his and most of the schedules. More than three-quarters of the changes of duties made by the Act of 1890 the McKinley bill were made in the House. It is not worth while to discuss these changes and the causes of them. Suffice it to say that Major McKinley did the greatest amount of work on the tariff of 1890. He inspired it, and had it not been for him it might not have been enacted. The question is not so much one of schedules as of principle. The purpose of the McKinley bill was to produce protection and it suc- ceeded in that. For his share of it Major McKinley deserves credit, and his labor was the greatest of any one concerned in constructing the measure. The Republican party appreciated this, and, therefore, nominated him at St. Louis. The McKinley bill has been misrepresented, ma- ligned, misconstrued, vilified, and all needlessly. The Democrats were intent upon their policy of free trade and started an agitation that resulted in the passage of the sugar trust tariff. The people now understand the differences between McKinley protec- tion and Wilson free trade. There is no object lesson needed. The people have it now. Protection and its importance and necessity is understood thoroughly. McKIX LEY'S ACTIVE YEAKS 87 Besides establishing the tin-plate industry the McKinley bill made sugar free, and the workman and manufacturer got his sugar twenty pounds for the dollar as a result. That was a great boon, the greatest possible. The Wilson bill places a duty on it at the dictation of the sugar trust. That is a con- tr;;e advocated, and spurred on by antagonism. McKinley .3 a patriot. Lincoln freed the slaves. McKinley will relieve the country from free trade, from poverty, and from depression. MCKINLEY'S PEESONALITY. The world knows William McKinley as a public man. His individuality is not understood, though here and there glimpses have been had of his person- ality, which have added to the respect in which he is held. It is not surprising that Major McKinley is not so well known as a private citizen, as a neighbor, and friend. The public has been more concerned with what he has accomplished, with what he repre- sents, and with what he has opposed. The other side has not been brought out, except incidentally. There is a warmth of feeling, a generosity of spirit, a sincerity, a purity of thought, a domesticity, an affectionate disposition, a depth of character, a vein of humor, a reserve, a patience under difficulties, a devotion to friends, a personal attractiveness and a breadth of character that make him admirable and lovable, that delights and benefits, that charms and wins, that inspires, and never wearies, that pleases and gratifies, and that makes one glad to see him, sorry to leave him, charmed to know him, and proud to be his friend. There is a magnetism that is attractive, a sunniness of disposition that is unex- pected at first, an evenness of temper that is unusual, PERSONAL SIDE OF McKIXLEY 103 a resignation that is composed, a reserve that is not often broken, but when it is there is a reward in the manliness, charitableness, friendliness, affection, trustfulness and confidence of the man. Though imbued and filled with the importance of the principles of the party of which he has so long been a leader, Major McKinley is not self-centered, neither is he selfish, for he often sacrifices for others, always ready often to inconvenience himself for the pleasure or benefit of his friends. A man who has had as much admiration, as much flattery, as much success must necessarily understand that he has ability, must be confident of his powers, but in William McKinley that is not accompanied by con- ceit, for he is diffident, modest almost to bashfulness, but experience has made it possible for him to con- trol his tendency to seek obscurity, to enjoy quiet instead of strife. Major McKinley did not become a Presidential can- didate because he sought honors, neither did he run for Governor of Ohio because he desired the office. He did not try to continue in Congress because he was anxious to remain in public life. There are those who may be unbelievers in this ; but he did so be- cause he felt he had a duty to perform, a mission to accomplish. Were he to follow the inclinations of his wife and of himself he would not be a public man now. He would not be about to go through an exacting campaign. On the contrary, years ago he would have settled down to the life of a lawyer, 104 PEKSONAL SIDE OF McKINLEY going his way quietly and unostentatiously. His entrance into public life was almost a chance. That naturally resulted in his continuance therein. His services to the country have been at the sacrifice of money, for, as a lawyer, he could have earned, even in Canton, far more than he did as Representative or as Governor. For ten years, each time Major McKinley has run for office, he did it in hesitation, because of the pro- tests of his wife. ' To her his public career has been a sacrifice for country. She has felt that he has given far more than he received. On the day following his triumphal re-election to the Governorship of Ohio by a majority of nearly 82,000, Mrs. McKinley was told that her husband would be the next President of the United States. She shook her head firmly, and said he would not, that the Governorship was his last consent to stand for public office. She meant that, but she yielded to the exigencies of the situation, and as a good wife did what she could to aid him, preferring all the while that he should be a private citizen. Naturally Major McKinley is pleased and gratified with his political advancement. He would not be human if he were not, but he looks at it less as a personal victory than as the success of a principle which he holds most dear, and believes must be re- stored to the statute books, in such form as to suit the existing conditions. There is one characteristic in Major McKinley that the newspaper man does not like. He refrains PERSONAL SIDE OF McKINLEY 105 from discussing questions for publication ; declines to talk about them. While he was chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means in the Fifty-first Congress, when the tariff bill was before his com- O mittee in process of construction, he almost invaria- bly declined to give news of its progress. Possibly he did not know what news was. Certainly he would never tell a man about it. Skillful correspondents, accustomed to deal with public men, found difficulty in exacting information from him. The better the nqwsman knew the Major the less he secured, for his questions would be answered fully, but there would be an injunction of reserve that prevented any ad- vantage from being obtained. Major McKinley never sought newspaper notoriety. lie always shrank from it. William McKinley is naturally dignified ; but he himself is a tease, and a persistent one if the per- son made subject of his humor is teasable. It is not exactly mischievousness, but a kindly, friendly, and harmless pleasantry, showing an insight into character that often takes one by surprise. But no one ever takes any liberties with Major McKin- ley. No one ever slapped him on the back without finding that it was not an agreeab'le act. In fact, the better one learns to know Mr. McKinley the greater is the respect. There is no familiarity per- mitted, and, consequently, no contempt. While Major McKinley does not yearn to be made the butt of a joke, he has a keen sense of 106 PEESONAL SIDE OF McKINLEY humor, and can tell a good story as well as he can make a tariff speech. He is delighted, when there are no more serious matters to be considered, to listen to amusing anecdotes and incidents, and has a hearty and appreciative laugh. Nevertheless, he does not like stories that rest for their point upon some vul- garity. He never tells one himself, and has always avoided having to listen to them. McKinley is never profane. He seldom gives expression to irri- tation, but calmly accepts what comes, patiently over- looking faults and situations that cannot be pre- vented. Many a time, when worn with prolonged campaigning and anxious for rest, something would occur that was aggravating, some arrangement would not be made. On one occasion he had not received his satchel containing a change of linen. Some one had blundered. It was a most provoking occur- rence. The Major inquired whose was the responsi- bility, and contented himself with repeating several times, in a rather reflective way, " Well, that is nice." Then, when the culprit appeared with the valise, there was no complaint ; simply thanks for getting it. Major McKinley is always courtly. He is gracious as well. He never forgets that he is a gentleman, and is as dignified and careful of his words and conduct when with intimate friends as he is in pub- lic. He never forgets himself, never lounges, though he will take comfortable positions. He is an invet- erate smoker. He likes strong cigars and enjoys them, and when on a campaign his companions knew PEESONAL SIDE OF McKINLEY 107 where the cigar-box was in his valise, and it was per- mitted for any one to go and help himself, and Major McKinley was pleased when he discovered he had been robbed. Major McKinley is always careful about his dress. His clothes fit him well, are well made, but not ex- travagant. They are not such as attract attention. He wears a short frock coat, with trousers of the same material. The cloth is generally a black diagonal, though recently he has taken to rougher goods, but always black. A string tie is around his neck, and his watch chain is pretty, but severely plain. He wears a silk hat most of the time, though when traveling frequently puts on a slouch hat, such as is generally styled a Fedora. He makes a point of wearing cloth of American manufacture, and to assert that anything he wore was made abroad was to be met with an instant denial, and the statement that his tailor assured him that the cloth was of Ameri- can make, and it always is good, strong, serviceable goods, that is attractive and satisfactory. Cleanliness is one of the traits of the next Presi- dent of the United States. His shoes are always polished and his hands well attended to. Dirt seems to be abhorrent to him. He shaves himself, and can carry on a conversation while cutting off the beard, and do so admirably, while it is not necessary for him. to look into a glass to see where the razor goes. He never cuts himself, and shaves very close, seem- ingly dissatisfied until he finds that he can feel no 108 hair on the face, after running his hands over it several times in different directions. He is smooth- shaven always, and the unbearded face serves to bring out the strong lines, the thought-marks on the forehead and around the eyes, while the mouth shows firm lines, indicating perseverance and definiteness of purpose. His jaw is rather square and strong. The nose is muscular and indicative of character. The eyes are dark and sometimes obscured by the shagginess of his eyebrows, but when they are lifted up they gleam underneath and fascinate by their brightness, seeming black when brightened by con- versation or earnestness. The Major wears his hair rather long. It is a dark brown, and of recent years gray has scattered through. It is a little thin on the temples and at the top of his head. It is fine and silky and full of electricity. The ears are small, and the teeth white and strong and well cared for. His is a remarkably refined face, showing great intel- lectual power, with a large head to set it off, and a broad forehead that is pale, as is the face, though exposure gives a brownish color. In stature Major McKinley could be classed as medium. He stands perhaps five feet seven inches, just about an inch 'more than General Harrison. His head is well set on a broad, vigorous, yet grace- ful pair of shoulders. He has a little embonpoint, which the frock coat serves to hide. His legs are stocky, but well turned, and the feet small. In walking McKinley swings his shoulders from side to PERSOXAL SIDE OF McKINLEY 109 side a little, goes with a firm step, the stride being long for one of his stature. He plants his foot firmly and raises it from the ground with a spring. His gait is brisk, active, showing that he does not waste time. He is not much at exercise, but often walks. He prefers to ride where possible, and though in his youthful days considerable of an athlete, he prefers to sit and enjoy the air outside rather than to exert himself by walking. Major McKinley has a deep chest and a broad one, too. He has great lung power, and always breathes deeply. If he were measured it would probably appear that he has a chest expan- sion of five or six inches at least. McKinley's disposition is cheerful. He never permits small things to worry him. Defeat never makes him gloomy. Possibly he is a fatalist, but he has such confidence in the ultimate triumph of the principle of protection which he represents that he is never discouraged. Life is serious to him, but that does not prevent him enjoying it. He takes it seriously and studiously, acquiring information constantly, by asking questions and studying. He never stops a subject until he knows it thoroughly. When he says a thing is so, it is. He resembles Senator Allison in that respect. He is particularly charming to young people. He seems to understand them, and children like him, for he has a way of dealing with them that arouses confidence and then regard. Possibly they appeal to him because he lost his 110 PEKSONAL SIDE OF McKINLEY own. The children of his neighbors in Canton are his friends. For them he has always a cheery good morning and a friendly word. Wi$i the older people he is deferential. This is particularly notice- able in his treatment of his mother, who is now nearly eighty-eight. He shows always the most affectionate interest in her welfare, while she looks at him with eyes that are full of pride and love. The Governor's father died a year ago. There was a friendly familiarity between them that was touch- ing. There was devotion on the son's part and admiration from the father. It is in his - home life that McKinley is most lovable. To his wife he is always the lover, showing the delicate attentions that are so pleasing to a woman, and particularly to one whose health is infirm. There is a tenderness in his voice when he calls her name that shows he speaks from the heart. When she praises him there is a deprecating look, indicative of satisfaction at the wifely affection, but embarrassment that she should show such admiration. Mrs. McKinley looks upon her husband as the incarnation of all virtues. Her love, after twenty-five years of married life, is as of the honeymoon. INCIDENT OP EARLY LIFE. After concluding his study of the law with Judge Glidden, William McKinley moved to Canton, where he had been preceded by his sister, Anna, who was up to the time of her death the most successful and H te ft c c o: ADMIKAL DEWEY, HERO OF MANILA BAY. PERSONAL SIDE OF McKINLEY 113 popular school teacher iu the public schools of that city of 38,000 people. Young McKinley stuck a shingle out from a back room of the then public building, a three-story brick structure which stood where the court-house now stands. McKinley's room was to the rear of the law offices of Judge George W. Belden, who had served many years ou the Common Pleas and Circuit bench, and was a leader in his profession in Ohio. One evening the Judge was sick. He stepped back to the office of his new young neighbor and asked him to try a case for him the very next morning. McKinley said he couldn't. He wasn't able. He didn't know enough. He was not familiar with the law in the case and there was no time to look it up. The Judge said he himself was sick and McKiuley could try the case and must do it. McKinley sat up all night studying the law points and the next day argued the case and won it. As he was finishing his argument he noticed Judge Belden step into the court-room and take a rear seat. There was a twinkle in his eye. But McKinley did not see him again for a week. Then the Judge stepped into his humble office. He laid down twenty-five dollars, saying : " Well, Mac, you won the case ; I told you you would." " Yes, I won it, but I don't want any pay for it, ?uid if I did, I couldn't take this much." " You must take it," replied the Judge. " I couldn't take so much, Judge," responded the young lawyer.' 114: PEKSONAL SIDE OF McKlNLEY " But that's all right," rejoined the Judge ; " I get an even one hundred dollars from it, and keep the seventy-five dollars for myself. And what is more, I want you for a partner." Young McKinley relented, and Belden & Me- Kinley practiced together for several years, until Judge Belden died. They were one of the leading law firms of Eastern Ohio. GOVERNOR McKINLEY'g MONEY TROUBLE. The fact is familiar that Governor McKinley had the misfortune to indorse paper for a friend, and lost so much money that he resolved to abandon public life to earn the sum so far as it was over and above his means. The story was told in the New York World, in explanation of some abusive remarks touching McKinley, in March last, when it was seen that he was becoming very prominent in the Presi- dential contest. On February 17th, 1893, every dollar McKinley possessed was swept away, and he was overwhelmed with an indebtedness of between $90,000 and $100,000. It all came about through the failure of Robert L. Walker, capitalist, banker, manufacturer, and boyhood companion of Governor McKinley. Mr. Walker lived in Youngstown. He was Presi- dent of the Farmers' National Bank, the Girard Savings Bank, a stamping-mill company, a stove and range company, and interested in several coal mines in Western Ohio and Eastern Pennsylvania. Mr* PERSONAL SIDE OF McKIXLEY 115 Walker was a potent factor in the community, had the confidence of everybody, and was rated above $250,000. When young McKinley returned from the war and began the study of law and politics, Walker had helped him. When McKinley was elected to Congress he found the campaign expenses heavy, and a mortgage which was due on his wife's property, forced him to negotiate a loan of $2,000 from Walker. This Major McKinley paid out of his salary as Congressman within two years. It is probable that similar loans were made and paid afterwards. Mrs. McKinley was an invalid, and as Major McKinley's income was only $5,000 and an occasional legal fee he was never able to save anything. It was only during campaigns that he required these loans, and the money was expended in campaign assessments. When he had won fame in Congress he was no longer assessed anything, and in the last ten years of his life in Congress he was able to accumulate $20,000. It was invested in securities and real estate. These securities consisted of stock in various coal mines and undeveloped coal fields. The chief real estate item was the modest home in Can- ton. Early in 1893 Mr. Walker told Major McKin- ley that he was hard pressed for ready money. He asked the Governor to indorse his notes, which he proposed to have discounted. Without investigating or inquiring into the matter Major McKinley in- stantly consented. He only knew that his old friend, 116 PERSONAL SIDE OF McKINLEY I.: \ the man who stood by him in early years, wanted assistance, and anything he could do to help him he cheerfully did. The notes were made payable in thirty, sixty, and ninety days, and Major McKinley indorsed, as he supposed, about $15,000 worth. They were discounted as Walker planned and Major McKinley thought no more of the matter until Feb- ruary 17th, 1893. On that date Youngstown and Mahoning Valley was startled by the assignment of Robert L. Walker. A judgment of $12,000 against the Youngstown Stamping Company caused the failure. The stove company, the coal mines and the other enterprises went down the next day. Then the banks which held -the Walker paper began to figure. Major McKinley was leaving his home to go to the banquet of the Ohio Society in New York when he was in- formed of the disaster. He cancelled his New York engagement and took the first train to Youngstown. There he learned that instead of being on the Walker paper for $15,000, his liability in that direction was nearly $100,000. He could not under- stand it. Banks all over the State telegraphed him they had some of the paper. He was under the impression the paper had been discounted in but three banks. He held a conference with his friends. He told them he had endorsed a number of notes, but he understood that fully half of them were made out to take up notes which he had first endorsed and which had fallen due, PERSONAL SIDE OF McKINLEY 117 A little investigation showed that the old notes were still unpaid and the new notes had doubled, trebled, quintupled the debt. The Walker liabili- ties were about $200,000 and the assets not half that After the conference with his Youngstown friends Major MeKinley said : " I can hardly believe this, but it appears to be true. I don't know what my liabilities are, but whatever I owe shall be paid dol- lar for dollar." MeKinley was not interested in any of Walker's business enterprises. The connection was simply one of friendship. Mrs. MeKinley owned property valued at $75,000, left her by her father. On February 22d the Gov- ernor and his wife made an absolute and unqualified assignment of all their property to trustees II. H. Kohlsaat, of Chicago ; Myron T. Herrick, of Cleve- land, and Judge Day, of Canton, Ohio to be turned over, without preference, for the equal benefit of the creditors. Friends urged Mrs. MeKinley to retain an inter- est in her property, but she refused, and executed a deed to M. A. Hanna, of Cleveland. At this time Major MeKinley said: "I did what I could to liolp a friend who had befriended me. The result is known. I had no interest in any of the enterprises Mr. Walker was carrying. The amount of my in- dorsements is in excess of anything I dreamed. There is but one thing for me to do one thing I 118 PERSONAL SIDE OF McKlXLEY would do meet this unlooked-for burden as best I can. I have this day placed all my property in the hands of trustees, to be used to pay my debts. It will be insufficient, but I will execute notes and pay them as fast as I can. I shall retire from politics, take up the practice of law, and begin all over again." The news of the disaster, and the stand taken by McKinley and his wife, created a feeling of sympathy throughout the country. The Chicago Inter-Ocean started a popular fund, and money and offers of assistance began to pour in. McKinley returned the money to the contributors, thanking them for their interest, but refused to accept a dollar. Finally a number of personal friends of the Gov- ernor, M. A. Hanna, of Cleveland ; Philo Armour, Marshal Field, and H. H. Kohlsaat, of Chicago ; Bellamy Storer and Thomas McDougall, of Cincin- nati ; Myron T. Herrick, of Cleveland, and others, decided to subscribe privately to a fund to pay the Walker notes. Mr. Kohlsaat, who managed the fund, said to The World correspondent: "One of the chief reasons why the subscription plan was adopted was because a number of subscriptions were received anonymously and could not be returned. There were over 4,000 subscriptions sent in, and when the last piece of paper was taken up, bearing Major McKinley's name, no more subscriptions were received and some were returned. No list of the subscribers was kept, and PERSONAL SIDE OF McKIXLEY 119 Governor McKinley does not know to this day, with the possible exception of four or five names, who contributed the money. " When Governor McKinley saw the publication of the subscription scheme he wrote me absolutely declining to receive a dollar. Mr. Hanna and his other friends told him to leave the matter alone, for if his friends wished to assist him they should have the privilege." Myron T. Herrick, of Cleveland, was treasurer of the fund and took up the paper as fast as presented. Mrs. McKinley's property was tlien deeded back to her. She is worth to-day probably $75,000. McKinley has his original $20,000 and a little more. He saved nothing, it is said, during his second term as Governor. The matter has been referred to as showing a lack of business ability on the part of Governor McKinley. This is hardly justified. George Tod, whose busi- ness ability will not be questioned, says he would have endorsed Robert Walker's paper for half a million dollars the day before his failure. Such being his standing and such the close personal relations between the two men it is not strange that McKinley endorsed for Walker to a large amount. This is a perfectly straight story. Major McKinley and his wife were good for the money, and resolved to pay all the obligations and returned the first sub- scriptions ; but the final arrangement to take up Mc- Kinley's paper as fast as presented was so organized 120 PERSONAL SIDE OF McKINLEY he was constrained to submit to its execution. The whole transaction was one of undue confidence in the business ability, integrity, and standing of a friend, and the initiation of it was in the payment of a debt of gratitude. It is a chapter in the career of a man who has given his labor for the general benefit, paying scant attention to personal interests ; and the fact that Governor McKinley was saved for the public service is most creditable to the gentlemen who are responsible for the adjustment, and the action of the Governor himself was in every detail of his contact with it that of a man of absolute probity. CHAPTER VI. McKINLEY NOT A MAN OF ONE IDEA. His superior distinction as a protectionist has caused him to be erro- neously accused of exclusive devotion to that subject The great range of his public ?i>ceclu's and addresses A superb tribute from General Grosvenor, giving a list of subjects. THE reputation of Major McKinley as the fore- most champion of the American system of protection has for some years been familiar to all civilized people. He represents the American idea, and is as prominently in the eye of the public in England, France, Germany, and Austria as in his own country, and is in Spain, Italy, Sweden, and Russia a man of mark in all business communities, and of immense conspicuity in all commercial circles and manufacturing towns ; and so far as the Asiatics are interested in the affairs European and American, they are informed of McKinley as the man who stands for the principle that the Americans should diversify their industries and aid home markets with home manufactories, mingling producers and con- sumers on the same soil, aiding the fanners by divert- ing labor to other occupations than agricultural, and 121 122 McKINLEY NOT OF ONE IDEA causing competition among our own manufacturers in our own markets, by protecting them from foreign intrusion upon conditions unfavorable to our higher and broader interests. There is a curious bitterness of personal hostility abroad to Major McKinley. In some of the manufacturing districts of Germany, McKinley is regarded as a public enemy almost a monster. American children in German schools have been astonished, offended, and mortified by these mani- festations of feeling, and of one thing Americans can be sure, and it is that those who make a virtue in England or the Continental countries of Europe, of being hostile to McKinley, are not animated by ap- prehensions that his policy is injurious to the people of the United States. They hold that he is disposed to build up his own country at the expense of Europe; that his statesmanship is American, but not cosmo- politan, and that is not an unreasonable conclusion. It was the earliest fame of McKinley in Congress and as a Republican politician on the stump that he made his protection speeches intensely interesting, and that no one else did so with the same certainty and efficacy ; and it was out of this that the unwar- ranted impression grew that the discussion of the tariff was his sole specialty. In truth no one had a greater range of subjects. Born in a manufacturing town in his youth up to the time he became a boy soldier, seventeen years of age one of those in- tently interested in the prosperity of the manufactur- ing industries that demanded the protection that was McKLVLKV XOT OF ONE IDEA 123 declared in the first law passed by the American Congress, McKinley was a student of this great matter from infancy, and the facts and sentiments of the manufacturing people were for him in the air he breathed ; and lie saw and felt the advancing importance of the issues of protection because the world was at last so small that the nations over the sea were our neighbors. Liverpool was, in Henry Clay's time, further from American ports, than Can- ton and Melbourne now are, and the manufacturing districts of England are closer to us, in time and cost of transportation, than Connecticut was at the beginning of the War of States. The same thing may be said of Germany and Massachusetts. McKinley grew up with the question and was its master long before he was its expounder fronting the world, and its champion at home. He is popular here for the same reason that he is unpopular abroad. His name has swept the country as a Presi- dential candidate, because of its unquestionable and unexampled significance. The meaning of it is plain to the people, and what it means they want. He has friends who have been ardent and able organ- izers and workers but they have only handled the material that was abundant and seasoned. The fire was not kindled in green wood with laborious pains. The woods were ready to burn and the wind was fair. The people have done this thing themselves and they will see it through. They are dissatisfied with the free-trade experiments of Mr. Cleveland. 124 McKINLEY NOT OF ONE IDEA The Democratic threats to throw down the defenses of American industry were themselves disastrous and the weariness of uncertainty became an intoler- able misfortune and the tariff that was neither for protection nor revenue was a blow that seemed, under the circumstances, so unprincipled and wanton, the people resented it as damaging without excuse and insolent without provocation. The Hon. Charles H. Grosvenor, one of the Ohio men who has served long with McKinley in Congress and knew him intimately in personal and public life, has contrib- uted an excellent character sketch of his friend notable for its firmness and accuracy of touch, and breadth and clearness of view, and that has been exceedingly serviceable in making known the variety of the political life of the man who has been so heed- lessly criticised as a statesman with one idea and one speech. General Grosvenor says : " Governor McKinley is a man of most attractive personality. He was born and reared from child- hood to manhood among the people of the country. He learned in the school from which so many graduates have risen to distinction in the United States the school of adversity and personal en- deavor. "He is now fifty-two years of age, in the very prime of a splendid physical and mental manhood. He is not only vigorous mentally and strong from every possible standpoint of manhood, but is con- stantly growing and developing, and it may be said 125 of him with perfect propriety that he has never occupied a position in private or public life where he did not fill to the fullest measure all the expectations of his friends and constituents. Whether as a soldier in the field young, radiant with patriotism, buoyant with impassion or as a young lawyer entering upon the noble profession of his choice, as a Congress- man representing the great interests of his district and State, or as the executive of the great State of Ohio, he has, under all circumstances, risen to the full measure of the opportunity and discharged every duty and every trust with unwavering zeal and pre- eminent success. " He has been an ardent student of politics. He left a prosperous and growing professional business, and a flattering career just opening before him, and entered the field of politics a young man full of enthusiasm as a Republican. He has always been faithful to party duty, and while maintaining his own integrity of conscience, and while criticising party platforms and party movements at times, yet no one is truer to party obligation and party fealty than he. Kindly considerate of his opponent, always bearing testimony of the good faith of those of other political organizations, he, nevertheless, stands firmly and vigorously for the tenets of his own party. He is a Republican from honest conviction, and does battle for Republican organization and Republican victory from a sense of public duty. " His intense Americanism has had mucli to do 126 McKIXLEY NOT OF OXE IDEA beyond special matters of political contention. Be- lieving that this country is and should be for the homes and interests of the American people, he advocates the principles that, in his judgment, best subserve that result. " By intense Americanism it must not be supposed that he confines the definition of Americanism to the men and principles exclusively of American birth. He does now and always has recognized this country as not only the home of American-born, but also of the truly valuable citizens of other countries who come here and renounce their citizenship and all foreign powers, and fully assimilate the principles of our government and become loyal to the Constitu- tion, and industrial and faithful citizens of the United States. " During Governor McKinley's long service in Con- gress he gave special attention to the subject of the tariff, and as a member of the Ways and Means Committee devoted much of his time to revenue legislation ; but it must not be understood that Gov- ernor McKinley is a man of power and a man of knowledge upon a single subject. It has been said of him incidentally that he is a statesman upon a single question and a man of learning with a single idea. No greater error could possibly be suggested. " Since the expiration of his terra in Congress and during his four years in the administration as Gov- ernor of Ohio, he has delivered addresses upon a great variety of questions, and discussed a large McKINLEY NOT OF ONE IDEA 127 number of subjects, all outside of his specialty in national politics. He has made many notable speeches upon questions wholly independent and differing from mere political considerations. Among the notable speeches which he made in Congress other than upon the tariff question were : upon the contest against Judge Taylor in the Forty-fourth Congress ; the subject of free and fair elections in the same Congress ; a memorial address on the death of Garfield ; payment of pensions in the Forty- ninth Congress ; the Dependent Pension bill in the same Congress ; the purchase of government bonds in the Fiftieth Congress ; memorial address on the death of John A. Logan ; the question of a quorum in the Fifty-first Congress ; civil service reform in the Fifty-first Congress ; the Direct Tax Refunding bill ; the Hawaiian Treaty ; the Eight-hour law, and the Silver bill. These speeches, which are of the highest order of excellence, covered a wide range of subjects. " Outside of Congress his speeches and public utter- ances have covered a still wider range. Among those that might be noted" as of special interest are his address, at Atlanta, Ga., before the Piedmont Chau- tauqua Association ; the ' American Volunteer Sol- dier/ Memorial Day address, at New York City ; ' Prospect and Retrospect/ an address to the pio- neers of the Mahoning Valley; 'The American Farmer/ an address before the Ohio State Grange ; * Our Public Schools/ an address at the dedication 128 MeKINLEY NOT OF ONE IDEA of a public school building ; * New England and the Future/ an address before the Pennsylvania New ' / England Society ; ' The Tribune's Jubilee,' an address at the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the New York Tribune ; ' Pensions and the Public Debt/ a Memorial Day address at Canton, Ohio ; * No Compromise with the Demagogue/ at the Ohio Republican State Convention of 1891 ; a Fourth of July address, at Woodstock, Conn.; 'The American Workingman/ a Labor Day address at Cincinnati ; the ' State of Ohio/ an address before the Ohio State Republican League ; * Oberlin College/ an ad- dress before the Cleveland Alumni ; ' Issues make Parties/ an address to the Republican College Clubs at Ann Arbor, Mich.; his notification address to Mr. Harrison ; a Fourth of July oration at Lake- side ; ' The Triumphs of Protection/ an address before the Chautauqua Association, at Beatrice, Neb.; 'An Auxiliary to Religion/ an address at the dedication of the Young Men's Christian Association at Youngstown, Ohio ; an oration at the dedication of the Ohio Building at the World's Fair at Chicago; a memorial address upon the life and character of Rutherford B. Hayes ; a speech at Minneapolis upon questions of national-. import; an address on Wash- ington before the Union League Club, of Chicago, February 22d, 1893 ; an address to the students of the Northwestern University at Chicago on ' Citizen- ship and Education ;' 'Law, Labor, and Liberty/ a Fourth of July oration before the labor organiza- [BEE UNDER WHICH SURRENDER OF SPANISH FORCES AT SANTIAGO WAS MADE, MeKINLEY NOT OF ONE IDEA 131 tions of Chicago; addresses before the National Jewish Association at Cleveland ; before the National Saengerfest at Cleveland ; Grant memorial address at New York; an address at the dedication of the Grant monument at Galena, 111. ; an address before the Ep- worth League of the United States at Cleveland ; an address before the Christian Endeavorers of the Bap- tist Union, and before the Christian Endeavor Asso- ciation of the United Presbyterian Church at Colum- bus ; an address to the Lutheran Synod at Columbus ; an address at Albany, N. Y., on Abraham Lincoln ; an address before the Chamber of Commerce at Rochester, N. Y., on ' Business and Politics ;' before the State (Ohio) Chamber of Commerce on ' Busi- ness and Citizenship ;' before the German Veterans of the United States, at Columbus ; a Memorial Day address at Indianapolis; an address before the Grand Army of the Republic at Pittsburg, and most notably, his splendid oration at the dedication of Chickamauga and Chattanooga Park, and at the Atlanta Exposi- tion his speech upon * Blue and Gray/ "A careful perusal of these speeches, orations, and addresses will show that Governor McKinley, while an absolute master of all that relates to the tariff and all phases of governmental revenue, has yet distin- guished himself in these other fields of oratory by the same thoroughness of knowledge and the same beauty of oratorical effect. His oratory is of the choicest character ; phrases and sentences come trip- ping and bubbling forth from him apparently with- 13* out preparation, apparently without effort, forming the most beautiful constellations of oratorical effect and oratorical beauty. " It is not an exaggerated statement to say that Governor McKiiiley has made addresses, orations, and speeches of the very highest order, judged from the point of view of oratory and of thorough knowl- edge of the subjects, upon a more diversified line of subjects than can be justly attributed to many Americans of to-day. Indeed, we are at a loss to recall at this moment any one who has exhibited in this country a wider range of subjects with a more perfect handling of the same. He has addressed more people in the United States upon the various topics upon which he has spoken by far than any other living man, and he has been seen by a greater number of the people of the United States than any other man now living. " He is personally exceedingly popular among the masses of the people. It is safe to say that since the untimely death of James G. Elaine no American citizen has drawn to public gatherings anything like the number of men that have flocked to hear Governor McKinley. In the campaign of 1894 he traveled and spoke from platforms and Pullman cars in nearly all the States of the Nation where political contests were raging, and whether in the great Republican State of Ohio, or in the close and doubtful State of Missouri, or in the great crowds which met him in New Orleans, his audiences were absolutely unparalleled. MeKOLEY NOT OF ONE IDEA 133 " His nearness to the people, his closeness to the very sympathies and hearts of the masses of the American people, has not been excelled by the experience of any American within the memory of man. He has had experience in high executive office. For four years he has served as Governor of the great State of Ohio. During that time many events and some serious disturbances have happened in the State which brought out his strong and com- manding executive force." The space at command will not permit the repro- duction of the great mass of public utterances by Governor McKinley, but we propose to present enough passages, selected with the view of prefer- ring that which is characteristic and that together will testify the seriousness and searching studies with which he has made himself familiar with a range of topics equal in scope to those that have received the attention of his age and country, and we devote the chapters immediately succeeding this to the addresses in which he has discussed affairs in his characteristic style, showing the wide field of thought with which he is familiar, and in the treatment of which he dis- plays the energy, sincerity, and scholarship that he devotes to the service of the people. CHAPTER VH. HcKINLEY ON CIVIC PATRIOTISM. Address at Rochester, N. Y. Studying conditions of government Public opinion the basis Zeal after election The people's business Duty of business men Manufacturing interests Our best market An extraordinary spectacle. VERY rarely has there been a more powerful statement of the obligations and importance of civic patriotism than that by Governor McKinley, at Rochester, N. Y., before the Chamber of Commerce of that city. It is the more forcible because it is in the simplest business language and the direct association of good citizenship with good business is remarkable and impressive. CIVIC PATRIOTISM. GOVERNOR McKiNLEY AT ROCHESTER, N. Y., FEB. 13TH, 1895. " MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OP THE CHAMBER or COMMERCE : " I cannot forego making grateful acknowledg- ment of the honor of the invitation of the Chamber of Commerce of the city of Rochester which brings 134 McKINLEY ON CIVIC PATRIOTISM 135 me here to-night. It would have been more agree- able to me to have been a silent guest at your table, freed from the responsibility of making an address. " These are times when the wisest words are wanted and the careless should be unspoken. I wish more than ever in my life for the power to speak the words which, at a crisis like the present, are so much needed. The people throughout the country are at this moment giving more sober consideration to the duties of citizenship than probably at any previous period. They are studying conditions in national, State, and city governments. They are reflecting upon their responsibility and power in relation to these conditions, having uppermost in mind the pos- sibility to improve them. " ' What can we do to better them ?' is the inquiry engaging every thoughtful mind, and which comes almost unbidden from every tongue. The power, as well as the responsibility, the people are beginning to realize, rests with them. Their duty they want to know, and knowing it, they are ready to do it. " Our government, National, State, and Municipal, rests upon public opinion. Public opinion creates free governments, and upholds them for good or for ill. Public opinion, however good, if indifferent, has no vital force. When aroused, it may check an evil in public administration, but the evil will resume its sway the moment the public sentiment which arrested it lapses into indifference. Public opinion, to secure real reforms and hold them, must not be fitful and 136 MeKINL&Y ON CIVIC PATKIOTISM spasmodic ; it njust be vigorous, vigilant, steady, and constant, and as sleepless in its activity as the enemy of right is known always to be. Swift as public judgment sometimes is, and justly is, in the condem- nation of public officials and public policies, some- thing more than this is required. Execution of the public will must follow the public judgment. And this is only possible when the same public is alert and determined that its judgment shall not be a cold formality, but a living fact, to be respected and en- forced. " Zeal after an election is quite as essential as before. The cause which was successful at the polls demands constant zeal for its practical realization. The best agents of the popular will are made better by the in- cessant watchfulness of their principals. Not watch- fulness alone, but support, reinforcement, and en- couragement are necessary. The battle is only begun when the first line of intrenchments is taken. The army is quite as necessary in the engagements which are to follow. The election only determines public policy. It has then to be carried out. It requires the people co-operating continuously with the public officers to put into the forms of law and administra- tion their declared purpose. The election settles much or little dependent upon how the election de- crees are interpreted and executed. The election only declares the people's purpose. After this must come the fulfillment, for the promises of the election should always be sacredly kept. Here comes McKINLEY ON CIVIC PATRIOTISM 137 ' the tug of war.' Then is not the time for relaxa- tion on the part of the citizen, but for renewed and redoubled effort and vigilance. If then the people become iudiifereut, you may be sure the public officer, however strong and true and well meaning, will be inadequate for the task. The official is quick to catch the spirit of the people. " Lincoln said, as he journeyed to Washington in 1861, in response to the address of welcome by Gov- ernor Morton, of Indiana, at the city of Indianapolis : " ' In all the trying places in which I may be placed, and doubtless I will be placed in many such, my reliance will be upon you, the people of the United States, and I wish you to remember now and forever that it is your business, not mine alone.' " No truth was ever more manifest or more sig- nificant, then and now, than that uttered by Mr. Lincoln. " Government of the people is the people's busi- ness, and if they neglect it, government and people both suffer. The duty of the citizen does not end when the polls are closed on election day. He has. by the act of voting, performed an important duty, bat the 3G4 days of the year remaining each has its own distinct duty, sometimes quite as important as the one on election dav. v "Interest in public affairs, National, State, and city, should be ever present and active, and not abated from one year's end to the other. No Ameri- can citizen is too groat and none too humble to be 138 McKINLEY ON CIVIC PATRIOTISM exempt from any civic duty, however subordinate. Every public duty is honorable. " If the best citizens will not unite to serve the State or city, the worst may and generally will be in control. There is in every State and city a majority in favor of the best government, and when they fail to secure it, it is because the majority is indifferent and without unity of purpose and action. Business men cannot, with safety, stand aloof from political duties. Their success or failure in their own enterprises is often involved in good or bad government. The great danger to the country is indifferentism. " This menace often comes from the busy man or man of business, and sometimes from those possess- ing the most leisure or learning. I have known men engaged in great commercial enterprises to leave home on the eve of an election, and then complain of the result, when their presence and the good influence they might properly have exerted would have secured a different and better result. They run away from one of the most sacred obligations in a government like ours, and confide to those with less interest involved and less responsibility to the community, the duty which should be shared by them. What we need is a revival of the true spirit of popular government, the true American spirit where all not the few participate actively in government. We need a new baptism of patriotism ; and suppressing for the time our several religious views upon the McKIXLEY OX CIVIC PATEIOTISM 139 subject, I think we will all agree that the baptism should be by immersion. There cannot be too much patriotism. It banishes distrust and treason, and anarchy flees before it. It is a sentiment which enriches our individual and National life. It is the firmament of our power, the security of the Republic, the bulwark of our liberties. It makes better citizens, better cities, a better country, and a better civilization. " The business life of the country is so closely con- nected with its political life that the one is much influenced by the other. Good politics is good business. Mere partisanship no longer controls the citizen and country. Men who think alike, although heretofore acting jealously apart, are now acting together, and no longer permit former party associ- ations to keep them from co-operating for the public good. They are more and more growing into the habit of doing in politics what they do in business. Strong as the party tie may be, it is not so strong as the business tie. Men would rather break with their party than break up their business. They prefer individual and National prosperity to party supremacy, and a clean public service to party spoils. The business man cannot stand aloof from public affairs without prejudice to his own business and without neglecting the grave duties which he owes the State. Wholesome political activity in the business world is promotive of the general good. Interest in public affairs by spurts is probably better than no interest at all, but the steady, uninterrupted, 140 McKIKLEY ON CIVIC PATKIOTISM every-day interest is the crying need of the hour and the only path of safety. The best results in free government can be had in no other way. " You cannot hope to improve public affairs by withholding your own good offices. If you would clear and purify the atmosphere of our political life, you must lend your own energy and virtue and intelligence and honesty to do it. " The business men of the country have devolving upon them a grave responsibility. It is no easy task to keep the mighty wheels of industry in operation. Idle wheels ineah idle men and idle capital. Both draw upon their accumulations, and each is unprofit- able when the other is unemployed. Think of the vast capital invested in manufactures in this country, and what skill and watchfulness are required to keep it at work ! The manufactures of the United States in 1890, engaged $2,900,735,884 of capital, and the value of the output was $4,860,286,837. The making of these products furnished steady and remunerative occupation to 2,251,134 persons ; and the stupendous sum of $1,221,170,454 poured into the then happy and prosperous homes of the Ameri- can workingmen nearly four millions of dollars for each working-day, and nearly one-half million dollars for every working-hour of every working-day of the year 1890. Our manufactures have made steady advance from 1865 to 1892 ; nearly one million more persons were employed in the year 1890 than in 1880, and more were employed in 1892 than had MeKIXLEY ON CIVIC PATRIOTISM 141 ever been employed in any previous year in our his- tory, and more, it is needless to say, than have been employed since ; and the wages paid in 1890 were more than double the amount paid in 1880. The value of our manufacturing products in 1890 was more than 100 per cent, greater than in 1880. I do not think even the business men of this country ap- preciate I am sure that the people at large do not appreciate the full magnitude of the manufacturing interests of the United States, and the wealth which agriculture and manufactures and labor working together have made for the Republic. Our wealth in 1890 was $61,469,000,000. In 1880 it was $43,642,000,000. From 1870 to 1890 it increased $31,391,000,000, or almost twice the entire wealth of the Empire of Russia. Take Great Britain, the richest nation in the old world, with the accumula- tions of centuries, and our wealth exceeds her's in 1880 by $276,000,000. " In 1880 our wealth was 23.93 per cent, of the wealth of all Europe. Our earnings were 28.01 per cent, of those of Europe, and our increase of wealth was 49.28 per cent, of European increase. From 1870 to 1880 the per capita of wealth of Europe decreased nearly 3 per cent., while in the United States there was an increase of nearly 39 per cent. The freight that passed through the St. Mary's Falls Canal in 1890 exceeded by 2,257,876 tons the entire tonnage of all the nations which passed through the Suez Canal in 1889. Our home mar- 142 McKINLEY ON CIVIC PATRIOTISM kets have consumed heretofore five times as much of our manufactured products as Great Britain ex- ported of hers to all the markets of the world. Our products are carried to our own people and dis- tributed among them with greater facility and at cheaper rates, taking into account distance, than products are carried in any other country in the world. "How are we to get back what we have lost? How is the vast capital now invested in manufac- tures to be preserved and made profitable ? Only by keeping it busy and constantly at work. Capital scorns idleness ; it loves work if for no other reason than that it loves gain. Capital in manufactories which are shut down is not like money on deposit subject to call, or in the 'strong box hoarded away, which, while it earns nothing, keeps the principal sum intact and unimpaired. The closed mill depreci- ates the value of machinery and buildings and land and everything connected with it, and it is ever wearing away the capital invested in it. This is followed by impoverishment to the owners, injury to the community in which it is located, and desti- tution to those who have been employed. " Every business man would, therefore, rather run his factory than close it, because he wants his invest- ment to earn him something. When closed, his capital, so far as any immediate profit is to come, is stopped. It is with him a question whether he can run with as little loss as he can stop. If he can, he McKIXLEY Otf CIVIC PATRIOTISM 143 will always run. If he cannot, he is bound to stop. He cannot run at all if there is no demand for his product. Production requires consumption. Mar- kets are inseparable from manufactures. The manu- facturer must have a market; he wants the best market if he can get it, and he has come to learn where it is and how to get it. He knows, as he never knew before, how he lost it, and he knows how to regain it. We know, and we do not know it any better than our competitors in foreign lands, that the American market our home market is the best of all. We not only want to keep our home market, but we want a foreign market for our sur- plus products of manufacture and agriculture. We do not want it, however, at the loss of our home market. I am sure we do not want it when it shall involve the idleness and destitution and degra- dation of our own labor. We want not only to send our products abroad, but we want them to go abroad in our own vessels, sailing under our own flag. We should not depend upon our commercial rivals for the means of reaching competitive markets. We can well supply, and, for the general good, furnish our own transportation to foreign ports witli fair encouragement, and it should not be withheld, Many markets of the world are open to us if we could reach them directly without trans-shipment, with our own ships. " The general situation of the country demands of the business men, as well as the masses of the 144 McKINLEY ON CIVIC PATEIOTISM people, the most serious consideration. We must have less partisanship of a certain kind, more business, and a better National spirit. We need an aggressive partisanship for country. There are some things upon which we are all agreed. We must have enough money to run the government. We must not have our credit tarnished and our reserve depleted because of pride of opinion, or to carry out some economic theory unsuited to our conditions, citizenship, and civilization. The out- flow of gold will not disturb us if the inflow of gold is large enough. The outgo is not serious if the income exceeds it. False theories should not be permitted to stand in the way of cold facts. The resources which have been developed, and the wealth which has been accumulated in the last third of a century in the United States, must not be impaired or diminished or wasted by the application of theo- ries of the dreamer or doctrinaire. Business expe- rience is the best lamp to guide us in the pathway of progress and prosperity. "What a spectacle to behold! A government, which, in thirty-three years, has passed through the mightiest war in human history, which created a debt to save the Union ; that seemed most appall- ing at the time which, since that time, has paid off more than two-thirds of that great war debt, and which, in the three years preceding 1893, paid off nearly $300,000,000 of it from the income of the treasury and its surplus, which from 1865 has en- McKINLEY ON CIVIC PATRIOTISM U* joyed a financial credit without a parallel in the world's history, to-day is without sufficient money from its own receipts to pay the ordinary expenses, and with a credit, upon the authority of the highest officers of the government, is threatened with im- pairment. We cannot longer close our eyes to the situation which affects every home and hearthstone and the government itself. We cannot afford to quarrel over the past ; nor is it profitable to indulge in inquiries as to where the responsibility of the con- dition rests. It is enough for us to know it is here and upon us. Whatever differences we may hav had, we must all agree now that the situation is one that requires the highest sagacity in statesmanship, and the broadest patriotism in citizenship. Let us, first of all, keep without stain and above suspicion the credit of our country, which is too sacred ever to be neglected. Let us provide somehow, and in some sensible, practical way, for the collection of enough money annually to pay all our current expenses, in- terest on the public debt, pensions to soldiers, and every other governmental obligation. Until that is done, if we have to borrow money, that should be done, and the sooner the better, but this will be only a temporary cure and provision. That must be sup- plemented by legislation that will raise in the taxes and tariffs a steady income, full and ^mple for every government need. The way to stop loans is to stop deficiencies. The reserve is sure to be drained if you cut off the supply. I agree with the President 146 McKINLEY OK CIVIC 1'ATRIOTISM that a ' predicament ' confronts us, and I am sure there is wisdom and patriotism ample in the country to relieve ourselves from that ' predicament ' or any other, and to place us once more at the head of the nations of the world in credit, production, and pros- perity." [AMERICAN ISRAELITE-JEWISH ORPHAN ASYLUM, JULY 15TH, 1893.] EARLY EDUCATION AND THE JEWISH RACE. " When we get out into the busy world with its duties and responsibilities we have little time for the acquisition of more than practical knowledge. , " It is so often a question of mere sustenance, with little time for earnest study, much less for mental labor. And if the opportunities present at an insti- tution of this character are not improved they are lost to us forever. I enjoin upon you all to make the best use of the great opportunities you enjoy, and in after life you will find how much you have gained and how much embarrassment and blundering you will save yourself. " The young men and young women who succeed nowadays must succeed because of superior knowl- edge. This is an age of exactness. What you know you must know well and thoroughly, and to reach prominence you must know it better than anybody else. It will not do to know a thing half any longer. You must know it all, and the man who knows a few things worthy things, I mean, in science or art or HON. JOHN SHERMAN. McKIXLEY OX- CIVIC PATRIOTISM 149 mechanics or business better than those around him is the man who will succeed. " And the only way to acquire knowledge is to labor. There is no substitute for it. The best time to get it is when you are young. Proxies are not recognized, either in the intellectual or business con- flicts of the present day. To use a homely but expressive phrase, * You must hoe your own row.' " Don't try to master too many things. A few things of which you are thoroughly master give you better equipment for life's struggles than a whole arsenal of half-mastered and half-matured things. You belong to a great race and a great age, and you are citizens of the greatest country on the face of the earth. Every opportunity is open to you as it is to me, and to every citizen, as they have never been opened in any other quarter of the globe. Here is absolute equality of opportunity and of advantage, and those who can win must do so by force and their own merit ; and here what you win you can wear. The Jewish people have for centuries been con- spicuous in almost every department of life. In music they have taken the highest rank as com- posers and performers. Mendelssohn, Rubenstein, and Joachim have few equals. As actors they had Rachael and Bernhardt and a long list beside, who have been recognized as stars the world over. Among the philosophers is to be named the great Spinoza ; in medicine, Franke ; in Greek literature, Bernays; while Benfrey was the first of Sanscrit 150 McKINLEY ON CIVIC PATKIOTISM scholars ; Ricardo, conspicuous in political economy, and Sir Moses Montefiore, the great philanthropist, who died full of honors, a century old, whose memory is cherished the world over. His intellectual and physical faculties were marvelous. He retained his mental faculties until the last. After he was eighty years old, in the interest of his race and humanity, he made four great journeys ; two to Jerusalem, one to Roumania, and one to Russia. He was always doing good. " I observe from your souvenir that here in this in- stitution you sacredly observe his memory. He was broad-minded, not bigoted, loving his race and be- lieving in it, and yet helping Gentile as well as Jew. He contributed to build Protestant churches and found hospitals for the Turk and the Catholic, and assisted in every way to the elevation of all races and all colors of men. George Eliot, writing a few years ago about the Jewish race, and, as indicating the rank they had already taken, said : ' At this moment the leader of the Liberal party in Germany is a Jew ; the leader of the Republican party in France is a Jew, and the leader of the Conservative party in England is a Jew.' Our own country can furnish a long list of useful and conspicuous men of your race merchants and bankers, philanthropists and patriots, physicians and lawyers, authors and orators and editors, teachers and preachers all of them furnishing the young people of this Jewish orphan asylum worthy models to excite their ambition to become worthy successors..^ McKINLEY OX CIVIC PATRIOTISM 151 THE CHARACTER AND TRAINING OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. [February 12th, 1895, at Albany, N. Y.] "We meet to-night to do honor to one whose achievements have heightened human aspirations and broadened the field of opportunity to the races of men. While the party with which we stand, and for which he stood, can justly claim him, and with- out dispute can boast the distinction of being the first to honor and trust him, his fame has leaped the bounds of party and country, and now belongs to mankind and the ages. " What were the traits of character which made him leader and master, without a rival, in the greatest crisis in our history ? What gave him such mighty power? Lincoln had sublime faith in the people. He walked with and among them. He recognized the importance and power of enlightened public sen- timent, and was guided by it. Even amid the vicis- situdes of war he concealed little from the public re- view and inspection. In all he did he invited rather than evaded examination and criticism. He sub- mitted his plans and purposes, as far as practicable, to public consideration with perfect frankness and sincerity. There was such homely simplicity in his character that it could not be hedged in by the pomp of place nor the ceremonials of high official station. 152 McKINLEY ON CIVIC PATEIOTISM He was so accessible to the public tliat he seemed to take the whole people into his confidence. " Here, perhaps, was one secret of his power. The people never lost their confidence in him, however much they unconsciously added to his personal dis- comfort and trials. His patience was almost super- human. And who will say that he was mistaken in his treatment of the thousands who thronged con- tinually about them ? More than once, when re- proached for permitting visitors to crowd upon him, he asked, with pained surprise, * Why, what harm does this confidence in men do me?* Horace Greeley once said : * I doubt whether man, woman, or child, white or black, bond or free, virtuous or vicious, ever accosted or reached forth a hand to Abraham Lincoln and detected in his countenance or manner any repugnance or shrinking from the proffered contact, any assumption of superiority or betrayal of disdain.' Bancroft, the historian, allud- ing to this characteristic, which was never so con- spicuously manifested as during the darker hours of the war, beautifully illustrated it in these memorable words : ' As a child, in a dark night, on a rugged way, catches hold of the hand of its father for guid- ance and support, Lincoln clung fast to the hand of the people and moved calmly through the gloom. 1 " His earliest public utterances were marked by this confidence. On March 9th, 1832, when announc- ing himself a candidate for Representative, he said that he felt it his duty to make known to the people McKIXLEY ON CIVIC PATRIOTISM 153 his sentiments upon the questions of the day. 1 Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition/ he observed, ' and whether it be true or not I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men by rendering my- self worthy of their esteem. How far I shall suc- ceed in gratifying this ambition is yet to be de- veloped. I am young and unknown to many of you. I was born and have ever remained in the most humble walks of life. I have no wealthy or popular relatives or friends to recommend me. My case is thrown exclusively upon the independent voters of the county. . . . But if the good people in their wisdom shall see fit to keep me in the back- ground, I have been too familiar with disappointment to be very much chagrined.' " In this remarkable address, made when he was only twenty-three, the main elements of Lincoln's character and the qualities which made his great career possible are revealed with startling distinct- ness. We see therein * that brave old wisdom of sincerity/ that oneness in feeling with the common people, and that supreme confidence in them which formed the foundation of his political faith. " Among the statesmen of America Lincoln is the true democrat, and Franklin, perhaps, excepted the first great one. He had no illustrious ancestry, no inherited place or wealth, and none of the pres- tige, power, training, or culture which were assured to the gentry or landed classes of our own colonial 154 McKINLEY ON CIVIC PATEIOTISM times. Nor did Lincoln believe that these classes respectable and patriotic however they might be should, as a matter of abstract right, have the con- trolling influence in our government. Instead, he be- lieved in the all-pervading power of public opinion. " Lincoln had little or no instruction in the com- mon school ; but, as the eminent Dr. Cuyler has said, he was graduated from ' the grand college of free labor, whose works were the flatboat, the farm, and the backwoods lawyer's office/ He had a broad com- prehension of the central idea of popular govern- ment. The Declaration of Independence was his hand-book ; time and again he expressed his belief in freedom and equality. On July 1st, 1854, he wrote: 'Most governments have been based, prac- tically, on the denial of the equal rights of men. Ours began by affirming those rights. They said : ' Some men are too ignorant and vicious to share in government/ ' Possibly so/ said we, * and by your system you would always keep them ignorant and vicious. We propose to give all a chance, and we expect the weak to grow stronger, the ignorant wiser, and all better and happier together/ We made the experiment, and the fruit is before us. Look at it, think of it. Look at it in its aggregate grandeur, extent of country, and numbers of population/ "His antecedent life seems to have been one of unconscious preparation for the great responsibilities which were committed to him in 1860. Being one of the masses himself, living among them, sharing McKINLEY ON CIVIC PATRIOTISM 155 their feelings, sympathizing with their daily trials, their hopes, and aspirations, he was better fitted to lead them than any other man of his age. He recognized more clearly than any one else that the plain people he met in his daily life and knew so familiarly were, according to our theory of govern- ment, its ultimate rulers and the arbiters of its des- tiny. He knew this, not as a theory, but from his personal experience. "Born in poverty, so great that in America it is now almost impossible to find its like, and surrounded by obstacles on every hand seemingly insurmountable but for the intervening hand of Providence, Lincoln grew every year into greater and grander intellectual power and vigor. His life until he was twelve years old was spent either in a half-faced camp or cabin. Yet amid such surroundings the boy learned to read, write, and cipher, to think, declaim, and speak in a manner far beyond his years and time. All his days in the schoolhouse ' added together would not make a single year.' But every day of his life, from infancy to manhood, was a constant drill in the school of nature and experience. " His study of books and newspapers was beyond that of any other person in his town or neighbor- hood, and perhaps of his county or section. He did not read many books, but he learned more from them than any other reader. It was strength of body as well as mind that made Lincoln's career possible. Ill success only spurred him into making 156 McKINLEY ON CIVIC PATBIOTISM himself more worthy of trust and confidence. Noth- ing could daunt him. He might have but a single tow linen shirt, or only one pair of jeans pantaloons, he often did not know where his next dollar was to come from, but he mastered English grammar and composition, arithmetic, geometry, surveying, logic, and the law. " How well he mastered the art of expression is shown by the incident of the Yale professor who heard his Cooper Institute speech and called on him at his hotel to inquire where he had learned his matchless power as a public speaker. The modest country lawyer was in turn surprised to be suspected of possessing unusual talents as an orator, and could only answer that his sole training had been in the school of experience. " Eight years' service in the Illinois Legislature, two years in Congress, and nearly thirty years' political campaigning in the most exciting period of American politics gave scope for the development of his powers, and that tact, readiness, and self-reliance which were invaluable to a modest, backward man such as Lincoln naturally was. Added to these qualities he had the genius which communizes, which puts a man on a level, not only with the highest, but with the lowest of his kind. By dint of patient industry and by using wisely his limited opportu- nities he became the most popular orator, the best political manager, and the ablest leader of his party in Illinois. McKIXLEY OX CIVIC PATRIOTISM 15? " But the best training he Imd for the Presidency, after all, was his twenty-three years' arduous expe- rience as a lawyer, traveling the circuit of the courts of his district and State. Here he met in forensic contests, and frequently defeated, some of the most powerful legal minds of the West. lu the higher courts he won still greater distinction in the impor- tant cases committed to his charge. " With this preparation it is not surprising that Lincoln entered upon the Presidency peculiarly well equipped for its vast responsibilities. His con- temporaries, however, did not realize* this. The leading statesmen of the country were not prepos- sessed in his favor. They appear to have had no conception of the remarkable powers latent beneath that uncouth and rugged exterior." THE PANIC MONEY A CONVERT. [East Liverpool, Ohio, October 17th, 1893.] "In the midst of unexampled plenty, with no inflation of prices, for prices had never been so low ; with no inflation of money, with every dollar in cir- culation as good as every other dollar, with no pre- mium on gold, we are struck by business depression from ocean to ocean. What has occasioned this? Is it the money of the country ? We have more money to-day than we ever had in all our history, and we have as good mcney as we ever hud before. Every dollar is worth 1 X) cents and every dollar good 158 McKINLEY ON CIVIC PATRIOTISM to pay all debts private or public. We have every- thing we had last year but prosperity. We bartered that away for a change of administration. [Terrific trumpeting of tin horns.] If the President were here to-night he would not have to inquire whether we are making tin in the United States. [Laughter and renewed trumpeting.] These tin horns here tell the story, and I doubt not every one of them was made from American tin [applause], which two years ago they said we could not make in the United States. This year we have the same men, same money, same machinery, and the same markets that we had last year, but we have another management. We have the same enterprise, same energy, same magnificent manufacturing plants, but the people last year decided for a change of policy. *' The money of this country and I speak to Demo- crats and Republicans alike should be as fixed and unvarying as human ingenuity can make it. It measures everything you have to sell ; the product of the farm, the merchandise in the store, the labor of your hands and the skill and genius of your brain, and if it is varying in value you never know what you may get for your products when you sell them. Therefore it is but right that you should oppose any and every attempt to resur- rect the wildcat money of forty years ago. There is not one Southern State that is not in favor of State bank money. Do you know why ? Because they still believe in State st ^ereignty. They don't McKINLEY ON CIVIC PATKIOTISM 159 seem to realize that State sovereignty was shot to death twenty-five years ago. [Applause.] When wool buyers they come as single buyers now go around they pay free trade prices, because the Demo- cratic party pledged themselves to make wool free, and they are in power in every branch of the Gov- ernment. They have so declared in their national platform and they even passed free wool through the last House of Representatives, and it should to-day have been a law had it not been for a Republican Senate and a Republican President. The wool buyer remembers this when he is buying wool, and so he pays free trade prices. This is true of every branch of industry. It is true of every de- partment of labor. But you have still the Protec- tive Tariff they say. Yes, but you are pledged to repeal it, and the man who receives notice that his house is about to be demolished does not wait until the dynamite is put in, but moves out his furni- ture as soon as he can. Now what will start your factories ? [" Hundred thousand majority for Mc- Kinley in November !"] What is lower tariff for? It is to make it easier for foreign goods to get in the United States, to increase competition from abroad. tf The people who voted for a change last fall are not satisfied, and the people who did not vote for a change are not satisfied. We find Democrats petition- ing to have the tariff left undisturbed. There are a good many of them who have looked into it ["Ikirt?"] Mr. Ikirt, my friend suggests. Your 160 McKINLEY ON CIVIC PATRIOTISM own fellow-citizen and your Representative in Con* gress; he too has looked into the pottery industry since last election. He says in his statement that he has given consideration to it. Well, it is better to give it consideration after than not at all ; but it is better always to consider before election if you can. He appears before the Ways and Means Committee and asks them not to disturb the tariff on pottery. I did not expect we would ever get so close the Doctor and I. I remember he was my competitor for Con- gress once. He was then a free trader, and said pro- tection was a fraud, There is nothing that has done my heart so much good as to find the Doctor down there appealing for the continuance of a tariff of sixty-five per cent, on pottery. It does my heart good to find him down there fighting for a tariff which I had put upon pottery myself. There is a sort of pathos about this statement of the Doctor's. After appealing for the pottery industry he says, *To err is human, to forgive divine.' That is a quotation from his speech. I suppose from that that it was human for him to err last year, and we have forgiven him for the errors and we welcome him to us. The only thing left for the Doctor to do is to get leave of absence, come home on election day and vote for me for Governor, and I have no doubt he will, because my competitor believes in free trade and declares that a Protective Tariff is a fraud, while the Doctor is in favor of sixty-five per cent, of 'inci- dental ' protection. I was one of those who helped McKIXLEY OX CIVIC PATRIOTISM 161 to make that tariff. I did not regard it as incidental nor accidental, I assure you. I helped to put it there to protect the potters of the United States and their labor, and it did it ; and every Democrat in both branches of Congress voted against it every one of them. Therefore I say it delights my heart to find the Doctor at last won over to the ' robber tariff' that cheats everybody, not only the consumer but the laborer, and is willing to take sixty-live per cent, for pottery. If for pottery, why not for iron and steel, wool, glass, cotton, and woolen goods ?" ADDRESS OX THE FIELD OF CHICKAMAUGA. September 18th, 1895. "The exhibition of high soldierly qualities dis- played by both the blue and the gray will be on every tongue to-day. The battle will be fought over a thousand times in memory between those who lately contended angrily on this field. All that is well. " But, after all, my countrymen, what was it all for ? What did it mean ? What was all this strug- gle, all this exhibition of heroism, and these appalling sacrifices for? A reunited country makes answer. No other is needed. A union, stronger and freer than ever before, a civilization, higher and nobler than ever before ; a common flag, dearer and more glorious than ever before ; and all, all of them secure ficm any quarter, because the contestants against each other ou this historic field thirty-two years ago are now McKINLEY ON CIVIC PATRIOTISM united, linked in their might forever against any enemy which would assail either union or civilization or freedom or flag. " The sacrifice here made was for what we loved, and for what we meant should endure. A reunited people, a reunited country, is the glorious reward. " The war has been over thirty-one years. There never has been any trouble since between the men who fought on the one side or the other. The trouble has been between the men who fought on neither side who could get on the one side or the other, as occasion or interest demanded. The bitterness and resentments of the war belong to the past, and its glories are the common heritage of us all. What was won in that great conflict belongs just as securely to those who lost as to those who triumphed. The future is in our common keeping, the sacred trust of all the people. Let us make it worthy of the glorious men who died for it on this and other fields of the war. " It is gratifying to the State that these monuments are hereafter to be in the keeping of the United States Government. The government they preserved should guard them ; that is where they belong. Henceforth these monuments shall be the precious possession of all the people. They show, Mr. Presi- dent, the honor paid by a great commonwealth to the patriotic valor of her sons. They are calculated to encourage patriotic devotion for all time. They are the nation's guarantee that the bond of Union. McKIXLEY ON CIVIC PATRIOTISM 163 shall not be broken. Their lesson is that the Con- stitution is and shall remain the supreme law over all. " In this great battle some fought to save the Union, others to divide it. Those who fought to save triumphed, and so the Union survived. Slavery was abolished, peace restored, the Union strengthened, and now, hand in hand, ail stand beneath the folds of one flag, acknowledging no other, marching for- ward together in the enjoyment of one common country and in the fulfillment of one glorious des- McKINLEY AND OHIO'S ANTI-LYNCHINQ LAW. [Governor McICimey's Message to the General Assembly of Ohio, January, 1896.] " Within the last year tnere have been two at- tempts to lynch prisoners charged with crime who were under arrest and in custody of the officers of the law. In both cases the aid of the military was invoked by the Sheriffs of the counties ; in both cases the law was upheld and the prisoners protected from the lynchers, but, unfortunately in both cases, only after the sacrifice of life. In the case in Seneca County two men were killed before the military had arrived. In the case in Fayette County the military were present, acting under the orders of the Sheriff. The protection of the prisoners in this case, to the deep regret of all concerned, resulted in the loss of a number of lives. The spirit which holds the laws 164 McKIXLEY ON CIVIC PATRIOTISM of the State and the authority of its chosen officers, acting within the law, in contempt, should not be per- mitted to triumph anywhere in Ohio. This State has boasted, and can justly boast, of the virtue and purity of its courts and the uprightness and fairness of its juries. The spirit of lynching is a reflection upon both courts and juries, and all the legally-consti- tuted authorities of the counties and the State as well. If there be a crime so repulsive that the punishment inflicted by existing law is inadequate, let the pres- ent General Assembly, by law, promptly increase the penalty. I urge the General Assembly to use all the power at its command to frown upon and stamp out this spirit of lawlessness, which is a re- proach upon the State and a shock to our civiliza- tion. Lynching must not be tolerated in Ohio." CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. CHAPTER VIII. THE LESSONS OP HEROIC LIVES. McKinley a patriot Oration Piety and patriotism Lessons ol heroism Influences of Chautauqua A fighting patriot The grand review A generous eulogy Illustrious names. THE oration before the Chautauqua Assembly, Grand Army Day, Monday, August 26th, 1895, is an example of the simplicity and elevation of McKinley on a patriotic theme and is worthy of study for purity of style and force of ex- pression. "ORATION BEFORE THE CHAUTAUQUA ASSEMBLY, ON GRAND ARMY DAY, MONDAY, AUGUST 26TH, 1895. " Mr. President, Comrades of the Grand Army of the Republic, Ladies and Gentlemen : It would have given me pleasure to meet this splendid Chautauqua Assembly at any time, but my gratification is the greater because I am invited to participate with you on the day which you have consecrated to country,. 167 168 LESSONS OF HEROIC LIVES the day you have devoted to patriotism and the memories of the past, with all their precious lessons. What could be more fitting on the part of this asso- ciation, whose chief objects are to exalt Christianity and promote sound learning, than to set apart a day to the brave men whose service and sacrifice pre- served unimpaired the liberties we enjoy, for our- selves and posterity ? Piety and patriotism have always been closely allied. My older hearers will recollect the fervent words, and recall with fond affection the matchless voice of* dear old Bishop Simpson, who said in 1861 : * Nail the flag just below the cross ! That is high enough Christ and country, nothing can come between nor long prevail against them.' [Applause.] " The lessons of heroism and sacrifice are not con- fined to any age or people, nor are they limited to the participants or the survivors, but are for all the people living, or who may come hereafter. Fortu- nately, in the economy of the Most High, the influ- ence of any duty nobly done, or of courage or devo- tion in any good cause, is never lost. It strengthens with the ages, blessing and consecrating as the years recede, and inspiring others to suffer, and, if needs be, die for conscience and country. This was the spirit which animated the soldiers of the Revolution and the Rebellion, and distinguished both. They battled neither for commerce nor conquest, but for immortal principles, involving alike human rights and the highest welfare of the human race. "What LESSOXS OF HEROIC LIVES 169 was lost to America in the first great struggle was nobly regained in the last. " These patriotic assemblages cannot, therefore, be too frequent, which invite a proper study of the past, not in hatred, passion, or bitterness, but to teach and enforce more plainly the blessings of peace, union, and fraternal love. They bring us closer together, as a reunited and happy people, guided by the ex- ample of the Master, whose life was one of sacrifice, and who is glorified as the Man of Peace and Son of God. " It is easy to decry the events and institutions with which we are familiar, but, after all, we have many very many patriotic altars, and should have many more national celebrations. All along the pathway of our national life, from Lexington to Appomattox, we breathe the incense of heroism. We are not unmindful of the mighty deeds of the past, nOr indifferent to the heroes who achieved them, nor can we be oblivious to the glories of the present, and the bright promise for the future. In a certain sense our churches and schools, our newspapers and literature, are constantly inspiring us with new and greater love of home and country. The work and influence of such great popular assemblages as this, not only here at Chautauqua, the fountain head of them all, but in other and distant States, are of price- less value to the people. [Applause.] " You have builded wise and well. You have not only given to the world's vocabulary a new, beautiful, >70 LESSONS OF HEROIC LIVES and significant name, but to the world itself a new and holy zeal in the good cause of Christianity and scientific and literary study. You are to be congratu- lated that the religious, educational, and fraternal in* fluences of Chautauqua are greater, far greater, than you know, and every where,*at home and abroad, are beneficial and elevating to mankind. Liberty of thought, speech, and conscience hold full sway on these congenial grounds. Bigotry is neither encour- aged nor tolerated, but, in the true spirit of the fathers, liberty and learning go hand-in-hand. In such an atmosphere American patriotism must burn with full flame, and as a light to the feet of all. [Applause.] For what is patriotism ? Did you ever stop to reflect upon what it embraces? There is born in every manly breast the determination to defend the thing he loves. We strike down the enemy who would invade our homes, and guard family and fire- side at the peril of our lives. There is no sentiment so strong as love ; no sacrifice too great for those we love. This is the underlying principle of genuine patriotism ; the foundation of true loj; alty to country. The patriot is he who, loving his country, is willing not only to fight, but, if need be, to die for it. It is this sentiment which gives to human governments their strength, security, and permanency. It is this sentiment which nerves the soldier to duty, and gains his consent to service and sacrifice. The strongest and. best government is the one which rests upon the LESSONS OF HEROIC LIVES 171 reverent affection of its own people ; and the nearer the government to the people, and the people to the government, the stronger becomes the sentiment of patriotism, and the stronger becomes the government itself. The laws are of little or no value if they do not have behind them the respect and love of the people. When patriotism is gone out of the hearts of the masses the country is nearing dissolution and death. [Applause.] " Did you ever seriously reflect what it means to be a fighting patriot ? Many people preach and pro- fess patriotism, but the true patriot is he who prac- tices it, and he can seldom practice it by proxy. Patriotism is the absolute consecration of self to country ; it is the total abandonment of business ; it is the turning away from plans which have been formed for a life's career. It is the surrendering of bright prospects, and the giving up of ambition in a chosen work. It is the sundering of the ties of home and family, almost the snapping of the heart-strings which bind us to those we love. It may mean disease contracted by exposure or from wounds in battle. It may mean imprisonment, in- sanity or death. It may mean hunger, thirst, and starvation. " In our own Civil War it meant all of these. With all these hard conditions there were nearly three million men who so loved liberty and union that they were willing at any cost or hazard to follow our flag. The blood of a half mill ion men was exacted 172 LESSONS OF HEKOIC LIVES in that fearful conflict to save the country ; and there are to-day tens of thousands who are suffering from disease contracted in the service of the government, and many thousands more bearing wounds from which they suffer every hour in the day, and some of these, alas ! are in distressing poverty. Our asylums contain many more-of the poor fellows whose hard ser- vice dethroned reason and unbalanced mind forever. The demands of patriotism meant for many wives widowhood, for many children orphanage. They took from many a mother her whole support, the love of the son, upon whose strong arm she had counted to lean in her declining years. There was nothing per- sonally attractive or promising about any of the features of enlistment in the War of the Rebellion ; it was business of the most serious sort. Every sol- dier took dreadful chances. His offering was noth- ing short of his own life's blood, if his country should require it. This, however, then seemed insignificant in that overmastering love of country, in that burn- ing patriotism which filled the souls of the boys in blue, in that high and noble purpose which animated them all, that they were to save to themselves, to their families, and their fellow-countrymen the freest and best and purest government ever known, and to mankind the largest and best civilization in the world. [Applause.] " With that spirit nearly three million men went forth to accept any sacrifice which cruel war might demand. The extent of that sacrifice far exceeded LESSOXS OF HEROIC LIVES 173 human expectation, but it was offered freely on the altar of their beloved country. Can we ever cease to be debtors to these men ? Is there any reward in reason they should not receive ? Is there any emolu- ment too great for them ? Is there any benefaction too bountiful? Is there any obligation too lasting? Is there any honor to these patriotic men which a loving people can bestow that they should not extend? What the nation is, or may. become, we owe largely to them. "In the Grand Review, at the end of the war, which stands unchallenged as the greatest ever wit- nessed by human eyes, stretched across the great marble capitol at Washington, greeting the sight of every soldier who passed, was a banner bearing this inscription : ' There is one debt which this nation never can pay, and that is the debt it owes the brave men who saved this nation/ That was true then ; it is no less true now. "If there is one of those old patriots sick at heart and discouraged, should not the cheerful and the strong, who are to-day the beneficiaries of his valor, comfort and console him? If there is one who is sick or suffering from wounds, should not the best skill and the most tender nursing wait upon and attend him ? Fortunately, our people have so far never failed in the most generous response to all such demands upon them. " We are not a martial nation, but no government of the world can boast a more devoted, self-sacrificing, 174 LESSONS OF HEROIC LIVES or patriotic citizenship than that which has estab- lished and maintained our free institutions for the past one hundred and nineteen years. Nor are we a nation of hero worshipers, but the men who fought and suffered from the Revolution to the Rebellion for independence, freedom, and union, are devotedly cherished in memory by the Ameri- can people. The soldiers of no other country in the world have been crowned with such immortal meedj or received at the hands of the people such substantial evidences of national regard. Other nations have decorated their great captains and knighted their illustrious commanders ; monuments have been erected to perpetuate their names ; permanent and triumphal arches have been raised to mark their graves. Nothing has been omitted to manifest and make immortal their valorous deeds. "In the United States we not only honor our great captains and illustrious commanders the men who led our vast armies to battle but we shower honors in equal measure upon all, irrespective of rank in battle or condition at home. Our gratitude is of that grand patriotic character which recognizes no titles, permits no discrimination, subordinates all dis- tinction ; and the soldier or sailor, whether of the rank and file, the line or the staff, infantry, cavalry, or artillery, on land or sea, who fought and fell for liberty and union indeed, all who served in the great cause are warmly cherished in the hearts and LESSONS OP HEROIC LIVES 175 are sacred to the memories of a great and generous people. [Applause.] " From the very commencement of the Civil War we recognized the elevated patriotism of the rank and file of the army, and their unselfish consecration to the country, while subsequent years have only served to increase our admiration for their splendid and heroic services. They enlisted in the army with no expectation of promotion not for the paltry pit- tance of pay, not for fame or popular applause, for their services, however efficient, were not to be heralded abroad. They entered the army moved by the highest and purest motives of patriotism, that no harm might befall the republic. While detracting nothing from the fame of our matchless leaders, we know that without that great army of volunteers the citizen soldiery the brilliant achievements of the war would not have been pos- sible. They, my countrymen, were the great power, the majestic and irresistible force. They stood be- hind the strategic commanders, whose intelligence and individual earnestness, guided by their genius, gained the imperishable victories of the war. " I would not withhold the most generous eulogy from conspicuous soldiers, living or dead ; from the leaders Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, Meade, Hancock, McClellan, Hooker, Howard, Logan, and Garfield who flame out the very incarnation of sol- dierly valor and vigor before the eyes of the Ameri- can people, who have an exalted rank in history, 176 LESSONS OF HEEOIC LIVES and fill a great place in the hearts of their country- men.. We need not fear, my fellow- citizens, that the great captains will be forgotten. No retrospect of the war can be had, no history of the war can be written, which shall omit the name of the gallant Sheridan, who made the scene of Stonewall Jackson's stronghold in the Shenandoah Valley his field of glory ; and no contemplation of the war can be had that shall pass unnoticed the name of the illustrious Hancock, whose brilliant achievements at Gettysburg and upon other noted fields covered him with fame. And no history of this war can be written which will omit the name of the glorious Sherman that grand old soldier who delved into the mountains at Chatta- nooga and came out splendidly triumphant at the sea. No, we can never forget that majestic triumvirate, nor especially the great captain who commanded all the grand military divisions of the grandest army of the world for Grant will be remembered forever. That silent, sturdy soldier, who closed his lips on the word * victory* at the Wilderness and refused to speak, but fought it out on that line until the complete sur- render at Appomattox, and who, while looking into his own open grave, summed up in history the matchless work of the Grand Army of the Re- public wrought under his glorious leadership. [Applause.] " Nor can any retrospect of the war be had which shall omit the names of the gallant naval officers who contributed such distinguished service to the Union LESSOXS OF HEROIC LIVES 177 cause Porter, Dalilgren, Goldsborough, Dupont. Foote, Am men, Rowan ; and, " ' While old Ocean's l>roat boars a white sail, And Hod's soft stars at rest irnide through the gale, Men will ne'er thy name forget, O heart of oak, Farragufc, Favragut, thunderbolt's stroke.' " CHAPTER IX, McKINLEY AND MONEY. Nominated for Governor The sound money battle A full dollar Not willing to chance it Two yard-sticks Struggle against inflation A high compliment Opposed to unlimited coinage Treasury Keport. IN 1889 James E. Campbell, in the Ohio Guber- natorial race, defeated Joseph B. Foraker, who, against his judgment, yielded to solicitations to run for a third term, and when Campbell's term was waning, he was nominated for re-election on a silver platform. There were some timid people of the Repub- lican persuasion who thought it would be disastrous to nominate McKinley for Governor he was so " extreme " and " high " a protectionist, and could not win in putting that before the people. McKinley was nominated, however, and then came the crisis of his career as a public man. He had become famous in Congress, and he had to be Governor or step aside. What did he do evade the money question ? The Democrats had presented themselves as for free and unlimited coinage of silver. Did McKinley fail to meet that issue ? On the contrary, he met it fairly 178 McKINLEY AND MOKEY 179 and squarely. His opening speech in this campaign of 1891 was at Niles, Ohio (his birthplace), August 22d, and he put the money question to the front, saying : " The Democratic platform declares for the free and unlimited coinage of the silver of the world, to be coined, as freely as gold is now, upon the same terms and under the existing ratio. The platform of the Republican party stands in opposition to any- thing short of a full and complete dollar. The legis- lation of the la_st Congress is the strongest evidence which can be furnished of the purpose of the Repub- lican party to maintain silver as money, and of its resolution to keep it in use as part of our circulating medium equal with gold. The law which the Re- publican party put upon the statute books declares the settled policy of the government to be 'to main- tain the two metals upon a parity with each other upon the present legal ratio, or such ratio as may be provided by law.' "The free and unlimited coinage of silver, demanded by the Democratic Convention recently held in Cleveland, amounts to this : That all the silver of the world, and from every quarter of the world, can be brought to the mints of the United States and coined at the expense of the government ; that is, that the mints of the United States must receive 41 2 J grains of silver, which is now worth but 80 cents the world over, and coin therefor a silver dollar, which, by the fiat of the government, is to be received by the people 180 of the United States, and to circulate among them as worth a full dollar of 100 cents. "The silver producer, whose 41 2 1 grains of silver are worth only 80 cents or less in the markets of this country and the world, is thus enabled to demand that the government shall take it at 100 cents. Will the government be as kind to the pro- ducer of wheat, and pay him 20 cents more per bushel than the market price? The silver dollar now issued under a limited coinage has 80 cents of intrinsic value in it, so accredited the world over ; and the other 20 cents is legislative will the mere breath of Congress. That is, what the dollar lacks of value to make it a perfect dollar Congress supplies by public declaration, and holds the extra 20 cents in the Treasury for its protection. The government, buying the silver at its market value, takes to itself the profit between the market value of 41 2 i grains of silver and the face value of the silver dollar. Now it is proposed to remove the limit and to make the government coin, not for account of the Treasury, but for the benefit of the silver mine-owner. " It does not take a wise man to see that, if a dollar worth only 80 cents intrinsically, coined with- out limit, is made a legal tender to the amount of its face value for the payment of all debts, public and private, a legal tender in all business transactions among the people, it will become in time the exclu- sive circulating medium of the country. Gold, which is 20 per cent, more valuable on every dollar, will McKINLEY AND MONEY 181 not be paid out in any transactions in this country when an 80-cent silver dollar will answer the pur- pose. Nor will the greenback be long in returning to the Treasury for redemption in gold. We shall do our business, therefore, with short dollars, rather than with full dollars, as we are now doing. The gold dollar will be taken from the circulating medium of the country and hoarded, and the effect will be that the circulating medium will not be increased, but reduced to the extent of the gold circulating, and we will be compelled to do the business of the country with a silver dollar exclusively which, under present conditions, is confessedly the poorest instead of doing our business with gold and silver and paper money, all equal and all alike good." Governor McKinley quoted President Cleveland and the Hon. M. D. Harter, a Democratic Represen- tative in Congress, and proceeded : " My competitor (Governor Campbell) has said in his reported interviews that in sentiment, upon this subject, * The Democrats of Ohio are very much divided ; that the vote in the convention was a very close one.' This close vote only emphasizes the danger of the free coinage declaration in the minds of a large number of the Democrats in the State, but enjoins the importance and necessity of the friends of honest money standing together, as in all the contests of the past they have been forced to stand together for an honest currency. Governor Campbell declared in one of his interviews that, while he had 182 doubts about it, be was willing ' to chance free and anlimited coinage of silver.' I am not willing to ' chance ' it. Under present conditions the country cannot afford to chance it. We cannot gamble with anything so sacred as money, which is the standard and measure of all values. I can imagine nothing which would be more disturbing to our credit and more deranging in our commercial and financial affairs than to make this the dumping ground of the world's silver. The silver producer might be bene- fited, but the silver user never. If there is to be any profit in the coinage of silver, it should go to the government. It has gone to the government ever since the Bland- Allison law went into effect. The new declaration would take it from the government and give it to the silver producer. " Now, the people know that, if we had two yard- sticks, one three feet in length and the other two and a half feet in length, the buyer would always have his goods measured to him by the shorter stick, and that the longer stick would go into permanent disuse. It is exactly so with money." Major McKinley proceeded to argue that the bondholders had been largely paid in 100-cent dollars, and that the pensioners should not be paid in depreciated dollars. He said of the struggle in 1867: " When the attempt was made at that time by the leaders of the party that now stands in opposition to the Kepublican party to repudiate the debt to tkt SIGNATURES OF AMERICAN AND SPANISH PEACE COMMISSIONERS TO TREATY OF PEACE Reproduced from Photograph Taken by Signal Service Officers Expressly for This History, by Permission of State Department at Washington. McKINLEY AND MONEY 185 bondholder, or pay it off in depreciated currency, insisting that we never could pay it in full, the soldiers stood with the party which represents good faith to our creditors and the honorable payment of every obligation, and swept back the tide of inflation and repudiation. They said that the Union which they saved from force should have no stain upon its financial honor, but every debt it had contracted to preserve the Union should be paid in the best coin of the Republic, and every obligation should be sacredly kept and observed. They were willing to wait for their pensions until the great money obliga- tion was discharged. The government credit was therefore sustained, and over two thousand millions of that great debt has been paid off, not in a clipped dollar, but in a full dollar. The positions are to-day reversed." In concluding this branch of his subject, Major McKinley spoke for Ohio in these clear and unmis- takable terms, that are as pertinent to-day as then : " Ohio has never in the past given her vote for a debased currency, and she will not do so in the future. When the country was wild for inflation in 1875 under pressure of hard times (and they were hard), the sober sense of the people of this State, without regard of party, stemmed that awful tide. The people of Ohio had more to do than any other State or constituency of the Union in keeping the nation upon the rock of honest finance and honest Currency. Thousands of Democrats helped in that 186 McKINLEY AND MONEY great struggle not through their own party organi- zation, but by leaving their party and joining with the party which represented good faith and honest dealing with the public creditor. They can take no other course this year. And the people of Ohio will take no backward step." In the campaign with Campbell there was a joint debate at Ada, October 8th, when the questions at issue had been thoroughly gone over, and McKinley, describing the issues, said he proposed to occupy his time with two of them the question of silver (giving it the first place again, it will be noticed), and the other question was that of taxation. This campaign is especially interesting in a study of the Republican candidate for the Presidency, and in view of the prominence given the question of money standards. McKinley had been gerryman- dered out of Congress by a Democratic Legislature, because he was the champion protectionist one of the highest compliments he ever received. He was decorated with the particular displeasure of the Democracy, and, from their party point of view, de- served it. The people of Ohio took him up for enlarged public service, and the Democratic party adopted a free-silver coinage platform. The greatei distinction of McKinley was as a protectionist, but he- met the silver issue forced by the action of the Dem- ocratic party aggressively. At his opening and birth- place speech in this most critical time of his fortunes, he was prompt, thorough, and emphatic in his treat- McETNLEY AND MONEY 1ST ment of money questions, and his remarks cannot be read by one who understands the history and science of money without admiration for the evidence that McKinley has mastered the subject. He employs the right word every time to express his exact mean- ing, and this precision of phrase is rare in the dis- cussions of the standards. Announcing the matters that were at issue between himself and Governor Campbell, McKinley said there were two prominent points, and " the one relates to the standard with which we shall measure our exchanges and our labor with each other and with the rest of the world, and the other relates to the subject and the method of taxation, by which we shall raise the needed revenues for public purposes. " The Republicans stood," the Major said, putting the actual money question in one plain sentence, "for a dollar worth one hundred cents," and he added : "You can buy to-day 371 i grains of pure silver, which constitutes the silver dollar; you cnn buy it in the markets of the world to-day for 76 cents. Free and unlimited coinage invites the silver pro- ducers of the world to bring their 76 cents' worth of silver to the mints of the United States, the govern- ment agreeing to coin that silver into a silver dollar, and by its flat compels people to take it for 100 cents, and the difference between 76 cents, which is the price of silver to-day, and 100 cents, which is the face value of the silver dollar, goes into the pockets 188 McKINLEY AND MONEY of the silver kings of the world ; and if we had had free and unlimited coinage in the last twelve years the $67,000,000, which was the seigniorage or gain to the government, would have been divided among the silver producers of this country and the silver producers of the world. When we sell our labor or our crops, we want to get for it a money that is as good as the thing we gave for that money, and we want the thing we get to be unvarying in value not only good to-day, but good every day of every week of every year ; not only good in the United States, but good where every trade goes. In a word, we want no short dollar, we want no short weight, we want no short measure. When the farmer sells his bushel of wheat he is required to give a full bushel in measure ; when he gets his pay he is entitled to have a full dollar in value." But it is said Governor McKinley once thought well of the " double standard." Well, he and Gov- ernor Campbell threshed that over together in their debate, and this is what McKinley said directly upon that subject : " In 1877 I voted to reinstate the ancient silver dol- lar a part of the coinage of the United States. Silver had been stricken from our coinage in 1873 stricken by both political parties, the one just as responsible as the other and in 1878, being in favor of both gold and silver as money, to be kept at parity one with the other, I voted for the restoration of the silver dollar. When I did it we had but 8,000,000 McKINLEY AND MONEY 189 silver dollars in circulation. When I did it silver was more valuable than it is to-day. We have 405,- 000,000 silver dollars to-day, and that is as much as we can maintain at par with gold with the price of silver that prevails throughout the world. I took every occasion to reinstate silver to its ancient place in our monetary system, because I wanted both metals. I am opposed to free and unlimited coinage, because it means that we will be put upon a silver basis, and do business with silver alone, instead of with gold, silver, and paper money, with which we do the business of the country to-day every one of them as good as gold. "I want to tell the workingmen here and the farmers that it takes just as many blows of the hammer, it takes just as many strokes of the pick, it takes just as much digging, just as much sowing, and just as much reaping to get a short dollar as it does to get a full dollar. " A one hundred-cent dollar will go out of circula- tion alongside an eighty-cent dollar, which is a legal tender by the fiat of the government. And no class of people will suffer so much as the wage-earner and the agriculturist. If it is the farmer you would benefit, there is one way to do it. Make the bushel measure with which he measures his wheat for the buyer three pecks instead of four, and require the buyer to pay as much for three pecks as he now pays for four. No man knows what the future may be, but in our present condition, and with our present light every consideration of safety requires 190 McKINLEY A.ND MONEY us to hold our present status until the other great nations shall agree to an international ratio.'* There is no sounder, simpler, more wholesome doctrine offered this day by any professional sound money man than this. More than that, there is no public man who speaks from higher intelligence on this subject. But they say Major McKinley was in favor of the double standard, and we see those words in large type and displayed as if they were criminal. What he meant by the double standard he explained in this luminous passage : " I am not in favor of the free and unlimited coinage of silver in the United States until the nations of the world shall join us in guaranteeing to silver a status which their laws now accord to gold. The double standard implies equality at a ratio, and that equality can only be established by the concurrent law of the nations. It was the con- current law of nations that made the double stand- ard ; it will require the concurrent law to reinstate and sustain it. Until then for us to decree free and unlimited coinage of the world's silver would be to ordain that our silver dollars must surely depreciate and gold inevitably go to premium." It has been much mentioned, and McKinley speaks of it freely, that he voted to reinstate the ancient silver dollar and[ was for it until we had demon- strated by coining four hundred millions and more, that this nation could not alone, and in opposition to the great moneyed nations, reinstate silver. Many. McKIXLEY AND MONEY 191 have denounced this action who should know that if it had not been for the coinage of silver by the hundred millions, and the policy of the parity of the precious metals insisted upon by the Republicans, the silver flood would have broken over all bounds and we should have been on the silver basis long ago. It was the very policy McKinley stood for that pre- vented our money from being Mexicanized. It was right and true and strong then, and right and true and strong now. The Treasury report for May gives the following figures of cash in the Treasury of the United States : Gold- Coin $118,644,283 02 Bars 32,6(32,859 89 $151,807,14291 Silver- Dollars $376,572,499 00 Subsidiary Coin . 15,637,42437 Bars 119,989,914 36 $512,199,837 73 This would seem to show that there is a good deal of bimetallism in our country. Of the full legal tender " demonetized " silver dollars we have on hand 376,644,283, forty-seven times the amount of dollars coined under the free silver system in the eighty years that it prevailed. That is the way this precious metal has been refused its right, and rob- bery of the people ensued. The silver storm still rages, notwithstanding this demonstration that one nation cannot restore silver except at an expense that would be ruinous. It is clear, however, to the calm and impartial student of our history, that with- 192 McKINLEY AND MONEY out this effort to reinstate silver when it stood almost at a parity in the markets at the old ratio with gold, the constant decline of the price of the white metal would have been charged to the omission of the dol- lar from the coinage orders and all financial troubles charged to the decline, and all the misfortunes of the people traced to the same source and the result would have been the overwhelming election of a free silver President and Congress, and we would have been Mexicanized as to money. If McKinley did make the mistake in his friendli- ness to silver of overvaluing it, he repeated an error of Alexander Hamilton, who fixed the original ratio in our coinage at 15 to 1. We have heard of the crime of the century in the demonetization of silver. Well, the man who first committed it was Thomas Jefferson, and here is the record : " DEPARTMENT OF STATE, May 6, 1806. " To EGBERT PATTERSON, ESQ., Director of the Mint. " flir : In consequence of a representation from the Director of the Bank of the United States that considerable purchases have been made of dollars coined at the mint for the purpose of exporting them, and as it is probable that further purchases and ex- portations will be made, the President directs that the silvei coined at the mint shall be of small denomi- nations, so that the value of the largest pieces shall not exceed half a dollar. I am, etc., ".JAMES MADISON." McKIXLEY AND MONEY 193 This was issued by President Jefferson. The coin- age of dollars was stopped on this order for thirty years. Many writers do not seem to have noticed 'this, to give it full weight and consideration. Silver was exported because it was the best money. There was great difficulty also in keeping our gold coin in use, and Thomas H. Benton said on the floor of the Senate in 1834 : " The valuation put upon gold has rendered the mint of the United States, so far as the gold coinage is concerned, a most ridiculous and absurd institu- tion. It has coined, and that at a large expense to the United States, 2,262,177 pieces of gold, worth $11,852,890, and where are the pieces now? Not one of them to be seen ! All sold and exported ! And so regular is the operation that the Director of the Mint, in his latest report to Congress, says that the new-coined gold frequently remains in the mint uncalled for, though ready for delivery, until the day arrives for a packet to sail for Europe. He cal- culates that two millions of native gold will be coined annually hereafter, the whole of which, without a reform of the gold standard, will be conducted, like exiles, from the national mint to the seashore and transported to foreign regions." This was followed by the law that reduced the quantity of gold li grains to. the dollar. It will be observed that we had about as much trouble with gold as with silver coin, THE MONEY STANDARD QUESTIONS. How the Money Standard Questions have been settled in and by the Republican party Silver legislation in brief How the country was saved from the silver standard John Sherman and Wil- liam McKinley have marched together The Hon. Charles Emory Smith's exposition of this question The unexampled supply of gold is solving the money questions for the people and abolishing this issue. THE money questions have been settled by the Republican party, and the standard of sound money is like the flag of the country, established, and the credit of the nation fixed. There was no compromise in the peace of Appomattpx and there has been none in the resumption of specie payments which marked the restoration of the public solvency. Republican policy has provided a national currency of paper, silver, and gold, equal in volume to the wants of the people, and all good as gold. There was a powerful movement at the close of the war to enlarge the greenback issues and extend the limit of paper of that character to cover all the bonded obligations of the government, but the greenback was made as good as gold, and then the 1*4 THE MONEY STANDARD 195 stress of the passionate green paper illusion passed away. The silver question took form when the country, under strong and wise guidance, approached resump- tion. It was then ascertained that we had partici- pated so far in an international plan to employ the money of resumption and secure the advantage of uniformity in coin to facilitate the intercourse of nations, as to omit from the mint regulations the coinage of the silver dollar our only white metal coin of full legal tender value and there was a for- midable tendency to retain the standing of silver in the mints without limitation. Silver had been " coin," in the meaning of the laws and contracts, through the war, and when the bonds were issued especially when specie payments had been suspended and there was an impressive propriety that "gold and silver" should be "coin," when we resumed coin payments, the same as when they were suspended. There was but little variation then between the mint and market value of the two precious metals at their old familiar ratio of 15J to 1 in Europe and 16 to 1 in the United States, and the matter did not seem to be momentous. The fall of silver had set in, caused by the sale of silver in Germany, to estab- lish the gold standard, and the enormous silver pro- duction in Nevada. The general judgment at least of those who had not been profound students or business experts in money was that if we replaced silver at the mints the value of the metal in the 196 THE MONEY STANDARD markets would advance to our ratio. Tins view of the case was at first taken by Major McKinley, but he supported the Allison amendment of the Bland bill, which was not to have " free " coinage of silver dollars, but forced commanded coinage, not less than two or more than four millions per month. Unquestionably this movement, originating with Mr. Allison in the Senate and supported by Mr. McKin- ley in the House, saved the country from the free coinage of silver, and, therefore, the silver standard ! John Sherman was Secretary of the Treasury, and coined the minimum sum two millions a month. He advised against the veto of the measure by Presi- dent Hayes, suggesting that he should allow the bill to become a law without his approval, as he had conscientious scruples against attaching his signature. The bill was passed over the President's veto, and the continued fall of silver while we coined over four hundred millions of white dollars was an object lesson most convincing that the United States could not alone restore silver as a standard money of the world. We reached the point that it was necessary to stop the free coinage of silver or accept the silver standard, and we stopped, pledging ourselves to maintain the parity of the two money metals, and there we are now, and, like France, the great bimetallic country, we uphold silver as a money metal by the limitation of the coinage and the direct application of the public credit. THE MO^EY STANDARD 197 Major McKinley has stood with Secretary and Senator John Sherman with unfaltering courage and unshaken fidelity throughout this contest, and was conspicuous in it for his perfect understanding of the general situation, his intelligence as to the principles involved and applied, and his exact information in details. There is no better record for honest dealing with all the people on all the questions of sound money, first and last, than his. One of the most frank, instructive, and luminous discussions of the silver question has heen supplied by the Hon. Charles Emory Smith, of Philadelphia, and is as follows : WHAT is FREE COINAGE? BY HON. CHARLES EMORY SMITH. We meet again the demand for independent, free, and unlimited coinage without regard to other nations. To this demand I now address myself. What is free coinage ? The standard silver dollar is now worth about fifty cents. Free coinage means that the govern- ment shall receive all the silver which may be pre- sented, and upon every fifty cents' worth put the stamp of one dollar. As nobody, however, expects it to be coined, it really means that the government shall issue its note for one dollar in exchange for fifty cents' worth of bullion, and that this note which the favored bullion owner gets for fifty cents' worth of his commodity shall be made a legal tender for one 198 THE MONEY STANDAKB dollar in current circulation. Now, what would be the result? It would be a forced circulation of a dollar worth one half its face. It would be the debasement of the unit of value, and so the violent disturbance of all values. It would be the destruc- tion of stability, and so the overthrow of confidence, security, and prosperity. Let me be entirely frank. I know the advocates of free coinage claim that their measure would raise silver to the standard of gold, or perhaps they would prefer to put it, reduce gold to the standard of silver that, in a word, it would establish parity. They point to the fact that the silver or silver certificates already in circulation have been kept at par at the ratio of 16 to 1, notwithstanding a far different market ratio. This is true, because we have limited the coin- age or purchase, because we have maintained the gold reserve, because we have pledged the whole credit and power of the government to sustain parity. But when we enter upon unlimited coinage, under present conditions, we embark upon a new and danger- ous sea. The free silver champions contend that our silver policy has failed, because we haven't gone far enough, and they insist that free coinage would bridge the divergence and remove the disparity of the two metals. There is no other pretense upon which it can be defended for a single instant. If it does not establish the equivalence of gold and silver at the determined ratio it is rank repudiation and dishonor. It is the willful adoption of the debased standard THE MONEY STANDARD 199 and the compulsory circulation of a depreciated dollar, with its robbery of labor, its unsettlenient of all values, its derangement of all finance and trade, and its incalculable wrong and dangers in every direction. But what possible hope can there be, in the light of the facts already before us, that free coinage will re-establish parity ? It was claimed just as confi- dently that the Purchase Act of 1890 would do it. What was the fact ? Its first temporary effect was to raise silver so that the bullion value of a dollar which was 74 cents in 1890 advanced for a short time to 84 cents ; but it soon dropped back to 72 cents, and has been falling ever since. We were then buying pretty nearly the entire silver product of this country. It must be remembered, too, that India, the great sink of silver in the East, was still under free coinage. While we were coining or purchasing nearly $600,000,000 of silver India was coining over $600,000,000, and during all this time, and in spite of this great market, silver kept on fall- ing. India has since stopped her free coinage, and how, then, can we hope to do alone what the two to- gether could not do ? Do you realize what free coinage by the United States alone involves ? It involves one of two things- either the lifting up of the entire volume of silver in the world to the standard of gold, or else the dragging down of the United States to the single standard of silver. There is no possible escape from 200 THE MONEY STANDARD one horn or the other of this dilemma. The visible stock of silver in the world is about $4,000,000,000. Europe has over $1,000,000,000. The product of the United States in 1893 was 60,000,000 ounces. The annual product of the world has grown from an average of 40,000,000 ounces, between 1860 and 1870, to an aggregate of 160,000,000 ounces. For the United States alone to enter upon free coinage means that we must stand ready to buy all of this vast stock that may be attracted by our open hand and open mint, and that, while it is now at a ratio of 32 to 1, we must undertake the stupendous and impossible task of lifting it to equivalence with gold at the ratio of 16 to 1. It means not only that we shall stimu- late and inflate our own product, but that Europe will dump its surplus silver on us. I know the silver extremists deny this truth. I know they allege that the silver of Europe is in use as coin and that it could not be sent here without a loss. But this answer will not bear examination, as a moment's considera- tion will show. Ever since bimetallism was abandoned Europe has been struggling for gold. With the adoption of in- dependent free coinage in this country that struggle would gain new force, because it would be notice that the re-establishment of bimetallism had been indefi- nitely postponed. The Bank of France has $250,- 000,000 of silver, not in circulation, but locked up in its vaults. The Bank of Germany has over $150,000,000. The Bank of Spain has" about $50,- HON. CHAS. EMORY SMITH , (Ex- Minister to Russia. ^ HON. LEVI P. MORTON. THE MONEY STANDARD 203 000,000, the Bank of the Netherlands $35,000,000, and others varying amounts. There are over $450,- 000,000 stored in nine banking houses. This silver is worth nothing to them beyond its bullion value. It serves as a part of the metallic reserve for their paper money ; but they could better sustain more paper on gold, and if they could make the substitu- tion by sending this silver to the United States and exchanging it for gold, why wouldn't they do it ? Let me give you commanding authority. Henry Cernuschi is the ablest champion in Europe of the restoration of silver and the recognized leader of the bimetallists. In his pamphlet on " The Great Metallic Powers " he says : "As soon as the coinage of silver by the United States was free, Europe would act toward the United States just as Germany acted toward France, so long as France coined silver. Europe would demonetize large masses of silver and send them to Philadelphia to get them made into dollars, with which dollars she would get gold dollars despatched to .her." And again: "Why is not the coinage of silver free in France? Because, were the coinage free, all the gold would emigrate, and France, deprived of gold, would no longer have a monetary medium, either with England, or with Germany, or with the United States. Very venturesome would be those who should recommend the United State? of America to undertake single-handed what France will undertake only triple-handed." Wise 204 THE MONEY STANDARD counsel and admonition from the greatest of the friends of silver ! Let me add another impressive warning. And in order to make it specific will you pardon a personal allusion, and a statement which I have never publicly made before, and in making which at the present time I hope I am not altogether indiscreet. In 1890 when the bill for the free coinage of silver was pend- ing in the United States Senate, I had the honor of being the American Minister at St. Petersburg. The Russian Minister of Finance was Mr. Vishnegradski, who died a few days since a statesman of extra- ordinary capacity, and perhaps the ablest Finance Minister in Europe at the time. I had occasion one day to call upon him, and I found him with a copy of the American free coinage silver bill, then under debate in the Senate, lying open on the table before him. His first expressions revealed his profound in- terest in the subject. He had studied the details of the bill to the minutest particular. He did not hesi- tate to pronounce it a most remarkable measure, in- volving a most disastrous policy, which, as a friend of the United States and of safe finance, he hoped she would not undertake. He inquired carefully after its prospects, and then in earnest words came the pregnant climax, which, as others were involved, I shall not in this public declaration venture to repeat in as specific a form as he gave it in that more confi- dential talk. But he said in substance : " If this bill . becomes a law the United States will expose herself 205 to dangers of which she has perhaps little idea ; there is a great deal of silver in Europe ; we have some in Russia ; already the proposition has been made to me to join in a movement, in the event of the American adoption of free coinage, to unload a part of Europe's silver on the United States ; but I believe this measure and this action would bring calamity, and I hope the United States will make no such mistake." It was the clear vision and the weighty remonstrance of a statesman looking on with the truer perspective of distance, and speaking with direct personal knowl- edge of dangers which the silver extremists profess to scout and deride. With free coinage the surplus silver of the world would flow toward our shores as infallibly as the dropping apple seeks the ground. It would flow here because this would be its one great market at a price not offered anywhere else. Realizing the danger of this deluge, some of the silver radicals have proposed to limit free coinage to the American product. But none of the free coinage bills has ever embraced that limitation. And if you tried it how could you do it "? With a temporary artificial and exaggerated price here, how could you prevent foreign silver from finding its way across our borders, as it has done in the past ? Besides, suppose it were possible to suc- ceed in such a restriction, that would not be free coinage at all. It would not lift silver in the markets of the world ; it would not remove the dis- parity between the two metals ; it would not, there- fore,, carry the only condition upon which free coin- age could possibly be justified ; it would simply enable anybody who has fifty cents' worth of silver bullion to take it to the mint and have it stamped one hundred cents, or take it to the Treasury, which would issue its note for it and force you and me to receive it for a dollar. Are the American people ready for that amazing folly ? Free coinage, I repeat, means that we must be pre- pared to buy the silver of the world. What would be the effect ? Gold coinage would immediately stop. Who would bring gold to be coined when it was undervalued one half? We should pay for the great influx of domestic and foreign silver in notes redeem- able in coin. The notes would be presented and gold demanded. If gold were paid by the Treasury, how long under this great demand would the reserve last ? If gold were refused we should be instantly on the silver basis, and the Treasury notes and the whole circulation of the United States would fall to the silver level. Under such conditions gold and silver would not circulate side by side. Gold would go to a premium. Every dollar would be locked up or exported. The government, stripped of its gold, would be forced to pay its creditors in silver, and that payment would reduce us at once to the silver standard. There is thus, under free coinage, no escape from one of the two alternatives, either that we must by our action alone raise the silver of the world to the gold standard, which is mani- THE MONEY STANDARD 207 festly impossible, or we must drop to the silver standard. This, then, being clear, we come to the next ques- tion, What does the silver standard mean and what would be its effect ? This question involves such broad considerations and such tremendous conse- quences that time will permit me to touch on only a few of them. The silver dollar is now intrinsically worth fifty cents. It passes for a dollar because, by limited coinage and full exchangeability, the gov- ernment has kept it at par with gold. Under free coinage it would be worth whatever the world should rate the silver in it as worth. It might be fifty cents ; it might be more ; it might be less. It would- follow all the fluctuations of a varying commodity, going up with the demand and going down after the deluge. It would still be called a dollar, but only because the real dollar unit of value had been ex- pelled ; and it would be a dollar in fact just as much as if we were to lock up all the present yard-sticks and were to make a new unit of length consisting of a foot and a half, and were to assume that calling it a yard would make it a yard. If it takes ten yards of cloth now to make a robe, ten yards under the new unit would leave the costume decidedly decollete! Wage-earners might receive as many nominal dollars as before, but the purchasing power of the dollar would measurably be cut in two. The Mexican dollar contains more silver than the American dollar ; yet the American silver dollar will buy twice as 208 THE MONEY STANDARD much in Mexico as the Mexican silver dollar. The American silver dollar is quoted in London at 100 cents and the Mexican silver dollar at about 50 cents. Why? Because Mexico has free silver coinage and we have not ; because Mexico is on the silver basis and we are not. But the free coinage advocates would put us there, and so put our dollar down to the level of the Mexican dollar. The serious menace of such a change would bring on a great financial convulsion, and its accomplish- ment would involve a complete economic revolution. It was the apprehension of going to the silver stand- ard that largely caused the monetary panic of 1893, and any real impending danger of such a catastrophe would produce a financial cataclysm that is appalling to contemplate. It would excite alarm at home and abroad; it would tumble our American securities back upon us ; it would dry up the springs of credit, restrict loans, paralyze enterprise, cripple trade and industry, halt investments, and repeat on a larger scale the bitter experience of that disastrous crisis of two summers ago. Even if the silver standard pre- sented the advantages which some extremists profess to think, the pathway to it would be strewn with too many wrecks and darkened with too much sorrow and sadness to be prudently undertaken. But suppose, running these risks and making these sacrifices, we had plunged to the silver standard, what then ? Practical object lessons are more vivid and convincing than theoretical discussions. Let us THE MONEY STANDARD 209 take a few object lessons. The amount of deposits in the savings banks of the United States is $1,747,- 961,280, and the number of depositors 4,777,687. The average to each depositor is $365.86. The silver standard means that on an average every one of these nearly five million people deposited $365, each dollar worth 100 cents in gold, and would draw out $365 in silver, each worth 50 cents. The savings of the working people of Pennsylvania go largely into building and loan associations. Nevertheless, there are in this State 248,244 saving bank depositors, with an aggregate deposit of $66,025,821, and an average individual deposit of $265.97. The silver standard means that every one of these 248,244 Pennsylva- nians put in 265 hard-earned 100-cent dollars, and would draw out 265 50-cent dollars. Pennsylvania has 1,239 building associations, with assets amounting to $103,943,364, and a total membership of 272,580. All of these members are, in their organized capacity, lenders, and each is in turn a borrower. Each is a capitalist, and belongs to the much-denounced " creditor class " to the extent of $381. These associations received last year $43,432,- 686, and divided $12,933,970. The whole system depends on the value of the. assets in the shape of mortgages, and collapses unless that is sustained. On the silver basis these 272,580 persons, all wage- earners, would find their $103,943,364 cut in two, and the only persons who would get any compen- sation would be the fraction of borrowers at that 210 THE MOXEY STAXDAKD particular time. Take another illustration. The aggregate pension disbursements last year were $140,772,163.78, and the number of pensioners 969,544, of whom 754,382 are the gallant invalid veteran defenders of their country, and 215,162 are the widows or orphans of Union soldiers. The payment to each pensioner thus averaged $144. The number of pensioners on the roll of the pen- sion office at Philadelphia is 57,749, and at Pitts- burg 45,774, a total of 103,523 nearly a ninth of the whole number in the Union. Under the silver standard the $144 going on an average to each of these nearly million pensioners would be 50-cent dollars, worth 72 real dollars. Take still another and impressive illustration. On January 1st, 1894, the life insurance policies in this country numbered 7,505,817, representing insur- ance of $5,291,824,900, and assets of $919,310,131. Considering wealth and population together, at least an eighth of this insurance is held in Pennsylvania, or say 1,000,000 policies sometimes more than one for the same person representing $650,000,000 of insurance and $120,000,000 of assets. The average amount of a policy is $700, and so the great mass of policy-holders are persons of moderate means. The security for the payment of this vast insurance is two-fold : first, existing assets, either mortgages or shares and bonds, and their value or income would be cut in two by going to the silver basis ; second, fixed annual premium payments, and their purchas- THE MONEY STANDARD 211 ing power in investments would be halved, since the amount was fixed on the gold basis and would be paid on the silver basis. On life insurance assets 75 per cent, are mortgages or shares and bonds, and this colossal contract for the future, involving in Pennsylvania alone nearly 1,000,000 policies and $650,000,000 of insurance, would, by the silver stand- ard, be depreciated one-half in value. There is yet another and momentous danger. The amount of American securities owned abroad is generally placed at about $2,000,000,000. Speaking in the House of Commons in 1893 of t\ie volume of British investments outside of the United Kingdom Mr. Gladstone said: "One thousand million pounds would probably be an extremely low and inade- quate estimate. Two thousand millions that is, in round numbers, ten thousand million dollars or something even more than that, is very likely to be nearer the mark." Burdett's Official Intelli- gencer for 1894 places the aggregate of forejgn secu- rities held by British investors, based on the income tax returns, at $3,819,035,000. The United States has one-half the railroads and telegraphs of the world, and it has a fifth of the British foreign trade. It is, therefore, a reasonable presumption that some fraction between a fifth and a half of the British foreign holdings are American some figure between $800,000,000 and $1,900,000,000. Add other Euro- pean holdings and the aggregate will reach $2,000,- 000,000 or over, on which from $60,000,000 to 212 $100,000,000 are annually paid in dividends and interest. This amount is now paid in dollars, worth in London 100 cents. On the silver basis it would be paid in dollars, worth in London 50 cents. Under such circumstances, how long would it be before these securities would be precipitated upon our market with all the consequences of such a move- ment? The stock of the Pennsylvania Railroad aggre- gates $129,289,000. Of this amount forty-six per cent., or about $60,000,000, is held abroad. Imagine the effect of having even a half of this vast propor- tion or a quarter of all the shares of the Pennsylvania thrown on the market ! This would be inevitable unless the dividends were paid in gold, and to do that would require either doubling the amount set apart or halving the dividends. Not a few bonds are made specifically payable in gold. In every such case it would take just as much money to pay the premium on gold as would be available for the divi- dend or interest. The effect on all railroads may be shown by a single illustration. The Illinois Central pays five per cent, dividends. This takes $2,500,000. Last year the road had $2,963,275 available, leaving a surplus of $463,275. Of the stock about forty per cent, is held abroad. To pay the foreign stock- holders requires $1,000,000. If they are paid in gold $2,000,000 would be required, and so the whole dividend must be cut down. If they are paid in silver the value abroad will be cut in two and the THE MOXEY 8T AMURD 213 foreign holder will sell. How can such a situation fail to bring a crash ? These are a few illustrations of what isolated free coinage and the silver standard involve. But it is claimed that if we were on the silver basis we should enjoy great advantages in foreign commerce and command the trade of the silver countries. We should, indeed, put ourselves financially upon the level of Mexico, and China, and India, but with what result ? The imports of the gold standard countries amount to over $8,000,000,000 a year, and those of the silver standard countries to less than $1,000,- 000,000. The exports of the gold standard countries reach annually $7,000,000,000, and those of the silver standard countries only $1,000,000,000. Why should we abandon the advantages of the former in a struggle for the latter? During the last fiscal year our exports to Europe amounted to $690,000,000, and our imports to $274,600,000. Here was a balance in our favor of $415,000,000, which was paid or credited to us in gold value. During the same time our exports tc the silver countries amounted to $42,000,000 ant! our imports to $170,000,000, Here was a balance against us of $128,000,000. We should continue to pay this sum in silver, or its equivalent, as we do now ; but why should we be so idiotic as to put ourselves on the silver basis in order that Europe may pay us $415,000,000 a year in silver values in- Btead of gold values ? Why should we upset our 214 THE MONEY STANDARD monetary medium with the great commercial nations^ and subject our commerce to the incalculable tax and burden and depression of a constantly uncertain and fluctuating exchange ? We. hear men talk loosely of the debtor class and the creditor class, and flippantly reason that so- called " cheap money " would help debtors at the expense of creditors. Who are the debtors and who are the creditors ? The creditors are every depositor in a savings bank, every member of a Building Association, every pensioner, every holder of an insurance policy, every workiugman who has saved anything out of his earnings and put it into institutions or investments, dependent upon public security and honssty. Borrowing requires credit. It is the well-off, not the poor, who borrow most. The borrowers will be found more on the stock- market than on the farm or in the workshop. If a man seeks loans for legitimate enterprise or needed development, he is most interested in maintaining the public credit and confidence, which makes easy terms and low rates. What he wants is not cheap money, but cheap loans. Repudiation is most costly to borrowers. It multiplies the risks and hardens the conditions. Depreciate the unit of value and you cheat every member of the industrial classes. The great body of workingrnen would be the worst sufferers. Prices on a silver basis would advance, because they would be paid in debased money, but the last thing to rise would be the wages of labor, THE MOXEY STANDARD 315 and the sons of toil, to whom the false appeal is most cunningly made, should be the most determined to resist and reject it. The depreciated currency, which is called " cheap money," but which, in reality, is the dearest, is the most insidious and deadly of all public perils. It deceives and deludes the unwary. It comes in at- tractive guise. It is, as has been said, like the cub of the lioness, described by the Greek poet, which was rashly taken by the hunter into his house. When it was young it was fondled by the children ; but when it grew and felt its strength it deluged the house with blood. There are those who unthink- ingly fondle this young financial folly ; but let it de- velop, and it will fill the country with sorrow and ruin. The dangers of the silver delusion are so clear that some of the extremists recoil from the abyss. They tell us they have not advocated inde- pendent free coinage. I do not wonder that they shrink from their own conclusion. But their record confronts them. They have voted for free coinage. They have sustained and upheld those who voted for it. They have denounced those who did not accept it. Their argument means free silver coinage, or it means nothing. If they renounce the conclusion let them renounce the contention. INTERNATIONAL BIMETALLISM. What, then, is the true remedy ? To find the remedy we must find the cause. The free coinage THE MONEY STANDARD extremists mistake the one, and so misapply the other. They begin wrong, argue wrong, and end wrong. They charge the fall of silver to the Act of 1873, which is said to have demonetized it, and they say it has not been restored to its position because we have not done enough for it. But the Act of 1873 had no more to do with the fall of silver than the last eclipse of the moon. We hadn't any silver to demonetize. We had coined only 8,000,000 silver dollars from the foundation of the govern- ment, and for a quarter of a century before 1873 there hadn't been a dollar in circulation. As to our subsequent treatment of silver, I have shown that since 1873 we have done seventy-two times as much for the silver dollar as we did in all our previous history, and in spite of this silver kept on falling. What has caused the great monetary dislocation of the past twenty years ? It was not the demone- tization of silver in the United States, but the over- throw of bimetallism in Europe. We had practi- cally no silver coinage, and our act had no effect. Europe had $1,000,000,000 of silver coinage, and her proscription of silver and the stoppage of her demand brought the derangement. For nearly two hundred years gold and silver had maintained a prac- tically steady ratio. The production of the two metals had fluctuated in the most remarkable degree. During the first forty-five years of this century the output of silver enormously exceeded that of gold. THE MONEY STANDARD 217 During the next twenty-five years the conditions were reversed, and the output of gold enormously exceeded that of silver. Within the quarter of a century following 1850 the mines of the world poured forth as much gold as during the entire pre- ceding three centuries and a half from the discovery of America by Columbus. Yet through these extraordinary changes in the relative quantity of gold and silver there was sub- stantially no change in their relative value. The steadying influence was the bimetallic system. Not all of the nations, indeed, had bimetallism. Eng- land had the gold standard ; Germany and Austria had the silver standard ; France and her associates of the Latin Union had the bimetallic standard ; and with Germany's silver balancing England's gold, France and the nations of the Latin Union served as what Walter Bagehot called "equalizing machines," and upheld the monetary equilibrium. In 1871, two years before our much-abused and unimportant Act of 1873, Germany abandoned the silver and adopted the gold standard, and began to accumulate gold and sell her silver coin. Within seven years she sold $150,000,000 worth, which flowed across the borders of France and Belgium. France and the Latin Union became alarmed and closed their mints to silver. Holland and other nations followed. The European outlet for silver was cut off. At the same time the imports of silver into India fell from 100,- 000,000 rupees a year to 30,000,000. While the 218 THE MONEY STANDAED demand was thus largely reduced the supply was largely increased. The annual production of silver was more than doubled just as this restriction of its use began, and it kept on until it was more than quadrupled. Here then is the cause of the monetary disturb- ance and here lies the remedy. The uniformity in the relative value of gold and silver prior to 1873 was maintained by the bimetallic system; it was broken by the general abandonment of that policy ; and it can only be reinstated by a general return. The restoration of silver must come through the concurrent action of the commercial nations. The enlightened opinion of the world recognizes these truths. The entire twelve members of the British Gold and Silver Commission agreed that it was the bimetallic system which preserved the stable ratio between gold and silver down to 1873. The six gold monometallist members agreed that bimetallism is practical and desirable for other nations though they hesitated to recommend it for England. The remaining six members declared themselves unre- servedly for bimetallism by international agreement. Germany, perceiving the great mistake she made in 1871, has declared for an international conference. England, impelled by the distress among her pro- ducing classes, is advancing toward this policy. France has been for it from the beginning. The depression of Europe urges it. The palpable advantages of bimetallism are gain- MARK HANNA. HON. C. H. GROSVENOR THE MONET STANDARD 221 ing ground for it every day. It broadens the mone- tary basis of credit and enlarges the stock of available sound money. It establishes monetary unity. It makes an approximately fixed par of exchange be- tween gold and silver countries. It promotes stability of values. It minimizes the evils of an appreciating metal on the one hand or of a depreciating metal on the other. The restoration of this system is the restoration of silver, and as its collapse was inter- national so its rehabilitation must be international. What is our true American policy ? We do not want to rest upon gold alone or upon silver alone. We want the joint use of the two metals upon con- ditions which will make every dollar as good as every other dollar in the pockets of the people, and in the markets of the world. We want the re-establish- ment on a broader scale of that bimetallic system which for seventy years, through the severest strains, through periods when the silver output was three times as great in value as the gold, and through periods when the gold output was nearly five times as great as the silver, still kept them at a stable ratio and maintained the monetary equilibrium of the nations. To accomplish this result it is our duty to set our faces like adamant against the independent free coinage which would indefinitely postpone bi- metallism and simply plunge us upon the silver basis. We ought to learn from our own experience. We have done more to promote the growth in Europe of a demand for international bimetallism since we 222 THE MONEY STANDARD stopped the purchase of silver in 1893 than we did during all the years when we were buying $600,- 000,000 of silver. So long as we alone were carrying the burden Europe smiled and remained passive. When we had sense enough to stop Europe began to be aroused to the necessity of action. Let us emphasize that lesson. Let us say to Europe by our acts as well as by our words : " We desire international bimetallism; we believe the business of the world will be better for the broadest use of both metals, but the initiative now rests with you." INCREASED DEMAND FOR GOLD. Bad as the present situation is, we can stand it as long as you can. We know the German agricultur- ists are crying out for relief. We know the Lan- cashire cotton-spinners are in distress and all the Indian exchanges are in confusion. We are ready to join you in an international agreement for the restoration of bimetallism ; but if you are not ready and if it is to be a struggle for gold we are going to meet you on that ground. Your London market was shaken when Mr. Vishnegradski boldly went in and bought $70,000,000 of gold to build up Eussian credit. You were watchful and solicitous when Austria began to buy gold to rehabilitate her finances. You replaced that treasure by drawing on Us. We know that France has wisely acquired THE MOXEY STANDARD $200,000,000 of gold while we have foolishly parted with that amount. But we are richer and stronger, more self-sustaining and more powerful in resources than the greatest of your nations; and if you are not prepared for bimetallism and if it is to be a con- test for the accumulation of gold, then we give notice that we are going into the markets of the world to buy $100,000,000 or $500,000,000 if necessary, in order to take care of ourselves. Such a notice would settle the question inside of six months. Europe would seek a conference and international agreement would follow. That is the solution of the question. Independent free coinage is the pathway to the single silver basis and to untold calamity. The restoration of bimetallism through international agreement is the pathway to honor, safety, and pros- perity. A DANGEROUS HERESY. I am not wishing to raise any personal issue ; but I desire from a profound sense of public duty, to resist a false and dangerous policy, and to sound a solemn warning against any attempt to commit our own people to a course of dishonor and disaster. It is not the first time there has been a proposal that we should falter in our devotion to honest money and true public faith. There was un hour when the delusion of inflated and depreciated paper seized upon some minds, as the delusion of inflated and depreciated silver seizes upon them now. It was 224 THE MONEY STANDARD kindred in motive and inspiration and peril. There were men then as now who were disposed to palter with it. But a distinguished leader of Republican- ism boldly met the heresy on the platform and the integrity and rectitude of our people were preserved. Let us confront and confound the present heresy and danger with the same determination and fidelity. Let us stand inflexibly for the honest money which lies at the foundation of all business security and in which every dollar, whether of gold or silver or paper, shall have full exchangeable equality with every other dollar. The admirable historical summary and argument of Mr. Smith may be fitly supplemented by the state- ment that the statistics of gold production empha- size all that he has said respecting the influences that affect the value of precious metals, and the difficulties and limitations of bimetallism. The production of gold has reached the enormous and unprecedented sum of $200,000,000 a year. The truth is the in- creased demand for gold in the richest and most ad- vanced nations has, according to the ancient irre- futable precepts and irrepealable laws of political economy, augmented the supply, so that it is only not improbable, but almost certain, that there will be of new gold added to the money of the world during the McKinley administration of four years one thousand million dollars. The peculiarity of the golden inflation, as was seen in California good times, is that it harms no one and helps everybody. It cheers, but THE MOXEY STANDARD 225 does not inebriate. It is wholesome inspiration and advancement, and there is no depression, no reaction. While we maintain the existing standard, resisting all extremists, disregarding factions, supporting with the credit of the nation the parity of the white and yellow money metals at the ratio familiar in our affairs, we shall follow the example of bimetallic France and close the mints firmly to the coinage of legal tender silver. We have all of that sort of money we can make good. There is to be no more free coinage of silver that is fundamental. The tendency of the gold production is to the settlement of the silver questions according to the operation of the laws and economics of nature, leaving less and less to be determined by the legislative wisdom found in the government. We have only to stand solidly, as we are, for honesty and economy, to find the very soil of controversy removed, and our feet on the rocks that have resisted the billows of the oceans and the stormy skies for all the millenniums of which there are records of men. CHAPTER XI. WILLIAM McKINLEY AS A CAMPAIGNER. Speaking to fifteen millions of people Making one thousand speeches Constitution of iron Wondrous vitality Magnetic power Excellent memory Good listener Making converts Policy of Protection the hope of America. IN the past six years William McKinley has been constantly in battle. There has been no rest for him. It has been a continued campaign, in which he was the central figure. Beginning with the impossible contest for re-election to Congress in the gerrymandered district and continuing through the gubernatorial canvass of 1891, the Congressional campaign of 1892, the second fight for the governor- ship in 1893, the great Congressional contest of 1894, the Ohio campaign of 1895, and the preliminary struggle of 1896, Major McKinley has been under an increasing strain. In that period he has probably spoken to more than fifteen millions of people, and shaken hands with a million and a half more, and made a thou- sand speeches, averaging an hour in length. Such was a task to make any man shrink, to test the nerve, 226 McKIXLEY AS CAMPAIGNER 227 the physical endurance, and the vocal powers ; but Major McKiiiley went through it all without the least symptom of illness, though he was often wearied and worn. The ex-Governor has a constitution of iron, great recuperative powers, the ability to sleep under uncomfortable conditions, to eat without care all sorts of food at all hours, and to digest it well, to drink waters that are ordinarily unhealthy without disastrous results. He has a surprising power, that comes to his rescue when it would seem as if he could do nothing more. He has a wondrous vitality, ex- cellent lungs, and great vocal power. Instead of breaking from constant use his voice seems to gain in strength and volume. It is interesting to note the way he begins a speech. The hall is always filled when he is booked to talk. It usually happens that it is difficult to get him into the hall, because of the crowds on the outside. The mo- ment he appears oft a platform is a signal for pro- longed and vehement cheering. His face flushes a little and his eyes flash. He breathes quickly and compresses his lips, the lines around the mouth taking promi- nence. He brushes the hair back from his forehead with a nervous hand. Though outwardly composed, it appears to those who know him that he is a little anxious and a bit apprehensive, possibly almost alarmed. It is worthy of note when he steps on a platform and is greeted with enthusiasm, he bows low and waves his hands from side to side. The silk hat is always in the right hand, the brim firmly gripped. 228 This is generally ruffled, for at the moment he forgets that it gets pressed. The bowing continues until the fury of the reception shows a sign of abatement. For the last four years almost every chairman of a meet- ing has introduced him as " the next President." To those who campaigned with him this became some- what of a joke, and there were bets made, the odds being always two to one that would be the introduc- tion. Now the chairman of a political meeting is generally a man of consequence in the neighborhood where the meeting is held. The opportunity of in- troducing such an orator as McKinley does not come often, and every chairman takes advantage of it. It is amusing to note the expression of McKinley's face when the introduction is prolonged. He frowns almost imperceptibly. Only one who has studied his countenance would notice it. There follows a look of weariness and then of impatience. He moves his feet a little and is restless. The strain is becoming painful to hear and the compliments dreary. They have been repeated probably twice before on the same day, and it is not often that anything of keen interest is said. When the inevitable " next Presi- dent" comes the Major's face is impassive. One would not know from his attitude that the refer- ence was to him. He does not seem to hate it, but would as leave it was omitted. Finally the chairman has come to the " Fellow cit- izens, I have the great pleasure, etc.," and McKinley steps forward and there are cheers. The speaker AS CAMPAIGNER 229 clasps his hands behind him and bows right and left, to the pit and to the gallery. He moves his hand to still - the enthusiasts and begins. He has discovered whether there are women present and then in a voice almost inaudible says, " Ladies and Gentlemen. My fellow citizens." The opening sen- tence is always a striking one. It is spoken in a low tone. Someone in the rear of the hall or at the edge of the crowd says " Louder ! " and there are many sounds of " Shu 1" McKinley pays no atten- tion to the interruption except to wave one hand again. The voice of the orator becomes stronger and in ten sentences the words ring and reach every corner of the hall. The audience is leaning forward eager to catch every word. As he proceeds the Major warms. He gesticu- lates with both hands. He hits the air a little to emphasize a point and while his attitude is unstudied it is graceful. He owns the crowd now. It is hyp- notized by his eloquence. His hair grows damp with perspiration. Possibly a dark lock will stray over his forehead. It is impatiently brushed back and the sweep of a handkerchief cools the brow. His eyes are flashing fire. His breast heaves with the storm. His voice rushes from between his teeth and his lips are compressed as he finishes a word. His tones are pitched in a higher key. There is a metallic tone in the voice and yet it is musical. His bearing is impassioned. He has forgotten self and is regardless of everything but his subject. One 230 McKINLEY AS CAMPAIGNER perceives that he is sincere in what he says. Every one sees that he is in deadly earnest, that this is no shain passion but the real thing. His words pierce the air defiantly and it is astonishing any creature can fail of conviction. The audience has grown in- tense in its interest. Many forget to cough or move. They are absorbed and their little selfishnesses are neglected. Every now and then some deep voice says " That is so I" or utters an "Amen." His com- panions who have heard him a hundred times are as interested as those who are hearing him for the first time. There is no resisting the earnestness of the orator, for all his soul and strength are in the speech. There will be nothing more serious in the sound of the last trumpet. Some one may interrupt to ask a question, to try to " stump him," to catch him un- awares. McKinley is so discussing his subject that he fails to hear what is said. He stops and looks in the direction of the ground and then says sharply, " What's that ?" The audience cries " Put him out." " No, no," says McKinley, " let him ask his question. Never put any one out." Probably the question is repeated. There is no hesitancy in the answer. The Major is ready. He turns a laugh on the ques- tioner by his flashing reply. He takes no mean advantage, but answers the question frankly. Gen- erally his reply is epigrammatic. It always is com- plete. Major McKinley has dramatic power and a mag- netism as a speaker. In describing scenes he pictures McKINLEY AS CAMPAIGXEK 231 realistically. The old soldiers are always impressed when he refers to them. Again and again he has brought tears to the eyes of the veterans when he has told of the horrors of war. Old men sob like children and there is scarcely a dry eye in the multi- tude. There is a sincerity in his tributes to soldiers that is convincing. He has been there. He knows what he is talking about. Though of any one else his talk of the war might be called stagey, that criti- cism is never made of McKinley. No one would dare to do so, because it would be untrue. It would be impossible to find a speaker who has a better grasp of the subject, whether finance, protection, arbitration or foreign affairs. His talk is always illustrative and comprehensible and instructive. It is serious. There are no anecdotes to amuse. The orator does not convince by raising laughs, but rather by the indisputability of statements. It is a grave matter this campaigning with him. It is a mission, not a jest; an attempt to convert, not to please. Neither does he arouse passion or opposition by assaults or trivial personalities. He assumes that those who disagree with him are sincere, as he is, and seeks to relieve them of their error. When he has finished, no matter how hot the day, McKinley puts on two overcoats, one light and the other of gray cloth, without sleeves, but with a cape. He buttons these around him to keep from catching cold. He thinks it well to let the perspiration flow freely for a while and then when he gets privacy 232 McKINLEY AS CAMPAIGNER rubs himself well and puts on dry clothes. Exposed as he is in campaigns to all sorts and conditions of weather, he must have a care not to. get a chill, and it is recorded that he was never incapacitated from speaking by bronchial troubles. Major McKinley remembers faces well. He gen- erally recalls a name, and when on a campaign he is certain to meet old friends, and the result is pleasing to both. He talks easily and freely with them and is entirely without assumption of superiority. He is approachable always. It is the custom when a cam- paign is made for the speaker to be assigned to the best hotel, or to go to some private house it being preferable to lodge at a hotel. There is always a committee of reception of citizens who have done such good service to the party as deserves that honor, or whose position in the community makes it well to recognize them. Such a committee meets McKinley at the station and of course there is a band. When the campaign is in such a State as Ohio, the band in the smaller towns is a great institution. It is the pride of the community. Unfortunately the bands pay more attention to securing uniforms and keeping their instruments glistening than they do to har- mony. The result is sometimes not alluring. They often play the same tunes. An air has a sudden popularity and the band must play it. The sounds they make and the repetition of them add to the labors of the campaigners. Major McKinley, who has a good ear for music, always displays great self- AS CAMPAIGNER 233 control. He never winces, no matter how hard the music tires him. Of course he would say nothing about it, unless some one would mention say a citizen of the community who had supported the band " It is a pretty good band." The Major then smiles as if in assent, but he never commits himself further. If he nods it is sufficient and the baud is held in higher esteem than ever. It is interesting in campaigning to observe how anxious McKinley is for information. When he comes to a town he listens to the talk of the politi- cians, to their statements of crop conditions, and of local affairs. Then information is drawn out regard- ing their industries. McKinley never cross-ques- tions his informers. He simply listens, and he is a mighty good listener. He says only what is neces- sary to keep the stream of talk flowing. At the meeting held immediately afterward it would be seen that the talk had been digested that the orator had gained from the conversation much to use to give a touch of local color, and to make plain his general arguments. It has been the custom of those who choose to op- pose Major McKinley, or to belittle him, to say he can only make one speech. This is as far as possible from the truth. If he is arguing on the tariff, in a campaign, he must do so. The basis of the speech is necessarily the same. The language and the illustrations are varied. He continually adds ideas and arguments, new epigrammatic phrases, and 234 McKINL'EY AS CAMPAIGNEK makes the theme constantly interesting, even to com- panions in the campaign. It was always instructive to notice how he develops thought builds around it, and makes it effective. The Major never seemed to get tired, no matter how trying the toil. He outlasts those who accom- pany him. He is always the first up in the morning, though often the last to retire ; cheerful and patient, accepting what was set before him with gratitude. He seems somehow to have the knack of making everybody around him at home, and is accessible to everybody. When traveling on a train he would naturally meet the brakemen and conductors, and they seemed to feel that he was one of them. They approach him with friendly familiarity. They sit down by him, crowd the aisles to talk with him, and go away proud of having met the great protectionist. It is seldom that one of them fails to thank him for his services to the industries of the country, or to wish him good luck. When waiting for a train he talks with the baggage man or station agent, or with those who waited to see him ofi\ always gaining knowledge of existing conditions, and it was the better because from those who gained it by personal experience. He knew what the workingmen thought as he did what the idea of the business men was. On one occasion, early in the campaign of 1893 in Ohio, the Governor and the newspaper men who accompanied him came to a small, unprepossessing McKIXLEY AS CAMPAIGNER 235 place. It was raining when the party arrived. The arrangements were poor, and there was only one car- riage, and the committee, to be with the Governor, got in with him. The other members of the party had to walk. The Governor happened to overhear some of his party complaining rather angrily of the treatment accorded them. Quietly calling them aside, he said : " Well, suppose you are dissatisfied ; the committee did the best it could. The hotel is the best in town ; we have been treated as well as the people could. Remember that they do not understand that what they have done is not pleasing. Remember that wherever we go we will get the best that the com- munity affords. What more can you expect?" Thereafter there were no complaints, the lesson had been a wholesome one. Major McKinley, in cam- paigning, always had an eye to the feelings of the people. In one campaign the party came to a town on the border of Indiana. The people are religiously inclined. While waiting for the meeting there was nothing to do, so some of the party set about to amuse themselves by playing "horse." McKinley sent for them, and told them the effect it was having, and they stopped. A campaign is a serious thing for him. Cordial and friendly, and even jovial at times, he would permit nothing that looked like levity touching serious things. Once something detained him while his party was on the stand waiting for the meeting to begin. One of the gubernatorial crowd 236 McKIKLEY AS CAMPAIGNER had a habit of pushing himself forward, securing the most conspicuous place. The members of the press assigned to follow the Governor in the campaign had noticed this, and the opportunity seemed to have arrived for a little fun at the expense of the pusher. A cry was started for him to speak. Soon the people on the stand caught on, and the cry increased in volume. Just then McKinley came, and as he stepped to the front he turned and asked sternly, "Who did this?" It was explained that the forward one had expressed a wish to speak, and that the opportunity seemed to have been afforded him, but the Major was not appeased. In campaigns there are many glee clubs. There, is one at almost every meeting. The songs which rang with his name never seemed to displease the Governor. Ha would beat time and nod his head, and his silk hat got hard treatment. In the campaign of 1893 in Ohio and that of 1894, which the Governor made in sixteen States in a month and a half, he was always finding new con- verts to Republicanism, made so by Democratic in* competence and tariff tinkering. Never was he so pleased as when such a convert would grasp his hand and pledge his support to the Republican party. To McKinley the policy of protection is the hope of America, and everything that shows a growth in its favor delights him. The convert was always asked to give the point that converted him, and it was used by McKinley in his next speech. HON. GEORGE F. HOAR. HON. W. B. ALLISON. MeKIHLEY AS CAMPAIGNER 339 Ji is jtiard enough to deliver a speech. It is suf- ficiently wearying to go through the muscular part of it ; it is trying on the nerves to be constautly^eyed up to the point necessary to such speeches as.Mc- Kinley makes ; but worse is the hand-shaking that follows, which, if the speaker be popular and of course McKinley suffered more through this than in any other way. He shook hands with at least four hundred people every day during the Ohio campaign of 1893. He seemed to enjoy it, but it wore on him. It became necessary to stop often. The members of the audience would clamber on a platform and fairly mob the Governor in attempting to shake his hand. Sometimes a scheme was worked, but not often. A friend would stand behind the governor and thrust his hands under McKinley's arms. The Governor would hold his at his side, and the friend take the cruel grip of those who in their enthusiasm forgot how strong they really were. After trying this once or twice McKinley declined to permit " such a fraud to be practiced." It was always hard to get McKin- ley to bed. He would get into a talk with friends after a meeting, and he would not dismiss them, for he was too polite. The only thing that could be done was to go to his room, open one's watch and say, " Governor, you have to get up at five, and it is now midnight." That sent the crowd away. The most noticeable thing about McKinley as a campaigner is his indefatigability. He makes two speeches of an hour and a half each and two others of from five to 240 McKINLEY AS CAMPAIGNER ten minutes, day in and day out. In his earnestness, his enthusiasm, his versatility, his eloquence, his magnetic power over an audience, and his dramatic force, he stands unequaled. McKINLEY's ADVICE TO BOYS. TLe enterprising boy Interviewing Major McKinley Boys' own account of it Painting up the town Looks like Napoleon- Fatherly advice An important question. A FEW weeks ago an errand-boy in the New York World became interesting through his anxiety to become a great man, and to find out how to do it by talking with great men and gaining instruction with a view to his education, the man- aging editor had a happy thought that the boy might become an interviewer, and sent him, accom- panied by a reporter, to the most accessible of great men, Mr. Chauncey Depew. After the conversation it turned out there was no occasion for the reporter's notes or his literary skill. The memory of the boy was perfect, and he had a quaint, simple way of put- ting things that was attractive. The boy was a suc- cess, and he was sent to interview Major McKinley, and the result is a beautiful picture of the Repub- lican candidate in his home, and a talk from him that every boy in America should read many times, 241 243 and that is worthy to go into the school-books as a marvel of manly talk to a boy. i The boy went out to McKinley's home in Canton, O., from New York City, was received cordially, and the statesman gave more than a half hour of his time, while a half dozen politicians stood on the piazza clamoring for admittance. The boy's report of his half hour with Mr. Mc- Kinley follows : " I have been down to Ohio to see Mr. McKinley, the big Republican. As I have visited many men who are great, and as Mr. McKinley seems to be the greatest of all at present, I wanted to see him bad, so I took a call on him at Canton, Ohio, the town he lives in. " When a man gets big like him he ought to be able to tell boys how to become great to, so I thought It would pay me to go down there and ask of him some advice on How a young boy can start in life and become a great man. " Canton isn't as big a town as New York, and everybody in the place knows Mr. McKinley and the family. " It isn't easy to ask Major McKinley things for the newspapers, I knew that before I started, so I found Mr. Boyle, his private secretary, and told him I was the boy reporter for the Sunday World, and all the boys wanted to hear about Mr. McKinley, and would he please fix it so I could see him. Mr. Boyle was a newspaper man and he knew all about it, so I McKTXLEY'S ADVICE TO BOYS 243 told him I didn't want to talk politics, and that 1 wanted to ask Mr. McKinley how I or other boys could get to be as famous as he was. " Then Mr. Boyle laughed, and said that Major McKinley was a very busy man all the time, but as he liked boys awful well, I might call around to his house and see him in the morning. As I had come all the way from New York, and wanted to do so, so much. " Then I was glad. So when morning came I got up early and started for Mr. McKinley's house, one thing struck me awfully funny on the road their it was that they were painting all the telegraph poles, and everything else in the town white and blue, they seemed tickled about something by the way they were slapping the paint all over the street, and I guess paint is cheap in Ohio, so I asked a man what they we painting up for, and he said they're getting ready to celebrate McKinley's nomination. " So I know everybody in Canton liked the big Republican, and I hurried on. His house is a pretty one, made of wood and painted white, on a fine broad street, and there wasn't any basements or steps, like we see in New York Houses. " It's a fine place to live in, and I'd like to liv there myself. "I knew right away that it was where Mr. McKinley and his wife Mrs. McKinley lived, for Mr. Boyle had told me what it looked like, he said there were two big earns painted white standing in the big lawn in 244 McKINLEY'S ADVICE TO BOYS front of the house. They weren't anything but two big flower-pots, as big as I am. " I went up to the door and pressed the button, and inquired as to see Mr. McKinley, its an electric bell, and I suppose it will be worn out soon, if there's as many callers come every day as come and wanted to see him as while I was there. "A young man who was an other private secretary came to the door, Major McKinley has two private secretaries. " ' Come right in/ says he and he took my card, and went into a room right by the door. I asked for Mr. Boyle, but the young man took my card to a large man, in the front room, and when he came out and said, * step right in here and sit down/ I walked in, and there was a big man sitting in the corner. I knew him right 'off as soon as I seen him, and I sat there in a rocking chair, sizing him up and the room I was in. " It was Major McKinley. "I seen he had a round head with not much hair on the top, and I knew it was him, because he looked like the pictures of Napoleon at the elevated stations, which the newspaper artists make him look like. " He wore eye-glasses and a black coat, and had awful big eye-brows, and he didn't look like as if he was in a great hurry, and I hoped he'd talk to me a good d@al. *' He was at a little desk looking over some letters. McKIKLEY'S ADVICE TO BOYS 245 " I liked him right off, and then I looked at the room. It was his library and he uses it as his office, it is very large with plenty of book shelves, which are full of his favorite authors, Grant, Lincoln and himself. " Pictures were hanging on the walls of Grant, Lincoln, and a lot of otheir great men and also a large beautiful picture of his wife Mrs. McKinley and himself. "Then I looked at Mr. McKinley again, and I seemed to be getting almost afraid to talk to him for I thought he was such a big man, wise and great, but I thought to myself that there wasn't any use for me to come all the way from New York and not talk to him. " So I got my senses together and just then Mr. Boyle came down stairs and stepped over to the Major, and said right off that there was a boy there to see him. Mr. McKinley got right up from his chair and stared at me with a very pleasant smile on his face. " ' this is Harry Wilson/ said Mr. Boyle, * who has come from New York to see you.' " ' I'm pleased to see you/ said Mr. McKinley, and he gave me his hand for to shake, and I liked him more than ever, because he acted as if he was real pleased to see me. " ' Sit down/ said he, and he pointed to my rocking chair, and then he sat down in front of me in one of them chairs that whirl around like the Editor's chair. 246 McKINLEY'S ADVICE TO BOYS " And I said to him, * Mr. McKinley I am more than pleased to meet you, as I think that not more than one of a thousand boys could see you and talk with you, and I'm proud.' " Then I told him at once what I had come for, be- cause I didn't want to keep him from his work, writing letters and suchithings. " ' Mr. McKinley,' I said, * I come to ask you if you would give me some advice as to how a young boy can start in life and become a great man ; I thought you could tell me/ " I wondered what he was going to say, as I've asked a lot of big men like Chauncey Depew and Alderman Muh the same thing. He sat still for a moment holding his eye-glasses with his right hand, and pushing the black bead on the cord with his other hand. I saw he wears a gold ring on the left hand and a pair of great big cuff buttons, not link buttons, like the swells wear ; I guess his wife must have given them to him. " He thought a long time, and then talked very slowly, and his voice was deep. " 'Well,' he said, 'first a boy must be a good boy, honest, always do what is right, pay attention to what he is doing, and be a student ; he must go to school all he can, learn all his lessons, and he mustn't be afraid to study.' " Then I thought to myself what Mr. McKinley had said was perfectly right ; then I paused for a moment, thinking what I should ask him next. I McKIXLEY'S ADVICE T(5 BOYS 247 had never been far outside of New York before, and Canton looked like a very small town to me, and I wondered if it was a good place to make smart men in. " ' Mr. McKinley,' I said, * will you please tell me do you think a boy has as much chance to study and make a great man out of himself in a small place like this as the boys in great cities like New York have ?' " That made him smile, but he said right off, ' A boy can make anything out of himself that he pleases, and he has just as much chance to do it in the country as in the city ; there are good colleges in small places, just the same as in New York, and a boy, if he wants to, can make what he will out of himself/ " He was beginning to get warmed up and was beginning to talk fast. He went on : " ' It don't make so much difference where it is or how great the part he plays, but it's the way he plays it. The other night I saw a play at the theatre called " The Rivals." Mr. Jefferson, and Mr. Drew and Mrs. Drew, and Mrs. Tabor, and Mr. Crane and Goodwin, the Holland brothers, and Francis Wilson, played the parts ; every one of them was great, and ! to be stars, but they were content to take some parts that were very small in " The Rivals," but they played them just as well as if they had been big. " ' That is the way with boys and men ; it isn't so much to be great as to do whatever you have to do well, that is being great/ 248 McKINLEY'S ADVICE TO BOYS " I began to feel as if I was hearing a sermon, and the Major McKinley looked very sober. " Then he got in a good word for Canton. ' If isn't such a small place,' he said, ' and it's a very nice town to live in. Some of the best farms are out this way. Before you go back to New York you had better take a good look around/ " But I wasn't through with him yet. I said, ' Mr. McKinley, would you please be so kind as to tell me when a boy should go into politics ?' " Then he laughed again and looked at his secre- tary, Mr. Boyle, who looks a good deal like Mr. McKinley. Mr. Boyle was going to say something, when Mr. McKinley suddenly sprang from his chair into the hall, and came in in a few moments with a lady leaning on his arm. " It was Mrs. McKinley, and she was very sweet- looking, and I was delighted to see her, and I think she would make folks comfortable if she lived in the White House at Washington. " Mr. McKinley is very fond of her, I am sure, and he escorted her to the carriage, and she was going out for a morning ride. " Then he came back and sat down with a smile on his face. When he was about to begin to talk to me he was called away again, and stayed away a few moments and then came in again and sat down and then laughed, and began to ask me questions before I could ask him some more. " ' How old are you ; how long have you been work- McKINLEY'S ADVICE TO BOYS 249 ing ?' I then told him and he wanted to know how long I had been reporting. I said ' eight months.' " He then said to me, ' Harry, I believe you must have a great deal of good advice by this time,' and the Major laughed. So did all the rest in the room. " I said If I could follow all I've been told I'd be a great man pretty quick.' " Mr. McKinley is very fond of his mother, who is eighty-seven years old, and lives near him, so I said, * Can a boy neglect his mother and get along and be great, Mr. McKinley ?' " He looked very grave and sad, and then said : " ' Harry, a boy should always be good to his mother and do everything in the world he can and love her. He must comfort her, be kind and gentle to her, and not only do all he can to make her happy, but he should make opportunities to try and do everything he can do.' "That's just the Major McKinley's words, because I wrote them down when I came out of the home. " ' A boy cannot expect to succeed if he isn't good to his mother/ the Major says. ' A boy should do all the work for her because when the time comes that she has got to leave for a greater world than this :t ml if he has done what is right towards her, all the time, then when the time comes for her to go he will never regret the good he has done towards her.' " Then I said * I have done everything in the world I can do for my mother,' and then lie said, * ' That's right, Harry, do all you can at all times.' 250 McKINLEY'S ADVICE TO BOYS " Then I stoped for a moment and says ' If every boy would follow the advice which you have given me, he never will feel sorry for the good work he has done for her when the end comes.' " Then I stoped a moment and thought that Mr. McKinley hadn't told me when a boy should go into politics, and I said, " ' Mr. McKinley, will you tell me when a boy ought to study politics.' " He then stoped a moment, and then said to me, " ' Harry, first a boy should study the History of his country, and learn all the political history of the country. He should learn what the leaders have done for their country, so that when the time comes for him to vote he will be able to do so intelligently.' " Then some more people came in to see him, and the Major McKinley went out into the hall again, and I knew he was in a hurry, so I said that I wished to ask one more thing. I remembered I had nearly forgotten one of the most important questions. " I then said after he had returned from outside of the hall, ' Mr. McKinley I have just one more question, and it is an important one.' "I then said 'would you tell me how you earned your first dollar ?' " He sank back in his chair and looked as if that wasn't what he expected me to ask him, then he put his hand up to the side of his head, as if to recall the years which had passed by, and then with a smile said: McKINLEY'S ADVICE TO BOYS 251 " ' Really I can't recall the first dollar that I earned/ he keeped on thinking, and I tried to make him think a little harder. "Then I said, 'did you have to saw wood, did you have to drive oxes all day long, or did you have to work in the field all day, can't you remember what you used to do to earn money/ "He then said to me, * why Harry I did anything a boy would do around the house. When I was s. boy money was very scarce, and you had to work hard for what little money you got. But I can't remember the first dollar. You have to ask me something easy/ " What kind of books should a boy who wants to be great read ?" " * Ah ! now I have to refer you to my private sec- retary, he has a lecture which he speaks on the stage that tells all that and much more/ " So then I knew my talk was over with him. I felt very sorry to say good-bye, but I said : " ' Mr. McKinley, I want to thank you, for it was very good in you to stop to talk to a boy, and I am very grateful/ " ' And I am very glad that you came to see me/ says he. ' I'm always glad to talk with boys. I like them and like to be with them. What is there in all the world nicer than a boy, except a sweet young girl ? Come again, Harry, and I hope you'll have the best of luck and do some good in the world with your work. Send me a paper/ 252 McKINLEY'S ADVICE TO BOYS " Then we shook hands again, and Mr. Boyle went out on the porch with me, and there was a lot of big men polictitians, I guess and I think Mr. McKin- ley was very nice to talk to me and keep them wait- ing so long. " I guess all the boys who know Mr. McKinley like Mr. McKinley as well as he likes them, because the boys of Canton, O., have already formed a drum core. Its the first campaign club in the country, and the boys are very proud of it. I'd join if I lived in Canton. The boys all wear white suits and drill, and are going to march for McKinley. "HARRY WILSON." Harry Wilson has beaten all the accomplished reporters, and his photograph of McKinley at home is perfect. It is valuable, for it is true all through, and the wholesome, serious, earnest, kindly, loving, genuine man, McKinley, stands revealed symmetri- cal, strong, and genial. CHAPTER XIII. THE CONTRASTED CONDITIONS. Between Republican protection and prosperity and Democratic meddling, disorganizing industry and forcing hard times, displayed in speeches by McKinley in 1892 and in 1895 A plea in Boston for protection and prosperity. GOVERNOR McKINLEY, on October 4th, 1892, in American Hall, Boston, addressed the people, beginning then, as he might now, saying : "This year we have two great questions. The contention of the Republican party is for the indus- tries and the labor and the prosperity of the country. The second contention of the Republican party is for an honest currency with which to meas- ure the exchanges of the people." He proceeded to make a speech most pertinent to these times, and put to the front the leading ques- tions. His remarkably forcible speech is now just as it was reported for the press. We quote : " The Democratic contention, no matter what Mr. Hill may have said in his Brooklyn speech, no mat- ter what Mr. Cleveland may have said in his recent 254 CONTRASTED CONDITIONS letter of acceptance the contention of the Demo- cratic party is for free trade and for a debased, worthless currency. If this is disputed, the history of the most unfortunate Cleveland adminstration proves it. [Applause.] The leaders of the Demo- cratic party have been financially unsound for more than thirty years. [Applause.] This unsounduess has not always taken on the same form, but its effect has always been the same to corrupt the currency of the country. You will remember its opposition to the greenback currency, its opposition to the national bank currency, its opposition to the resump- tion of specie payments, its declaration in favor of the inflation of the currency without limit in value and irredeemable. You will remember its declara- tion for the free and unlimited coinage of silver. These have been the positions of the Democratic party in every national contest for the past thirty years, one or the other, and driven from the one they have taken up the other. Their last was the free and unlimited coinage of silver. Driven by the party exigency, by the near approach of a Presiden- tial campaign, they abandoned the free and unlim- ited coinage of silver, put in nomination a candidate in opposition to the free and unlimited coinage of silver, and when they did that they had to break out in some other place. [Applause.] And so they declared in their platform of 1892 for the abolition of the ten per cent, tax on State bank circulation, the only object of such a declaration being to restore HON. BENJAMIN HARRISON. HON. R. PROCTOR. CONTRASTED CONDITIONS 257 such State bank circulation, and the only effect of such restoration would be the retirement of the national money of the country. " This is the worst form of financial unsoundness that has ever emanated from the Democratic leaders, and I purpose for a few minutes, and only a few minutes, to call the attention of this audience to what the return to State bank circulation means means to every business in the country, means to every interest of the country, means to every wage-earner of the country, means to every dollar of invested capital in the country a proposition to go away from the national bank and the greenback and the treasury note currency to the wildcat currency of thirty years ago. [Applause.] " You will remember that in 1866 the Congress of the United States imposed a tax on State banks. The purpose of that tax was to retire State bank circulation, and to substitute in its place national money, and it had the desired effect. State bank money went out and national currency came in. And we had to do it. We had a nation to save and we had to have national agencies to save it. State agencies would not do. " Now, it isproposed to go back to that, when we have got the best currency in the world. And I want to read you the condition of the banks of this country prior to ISIJO. I have lying on this table the old Bank Note Detector, which every business man had to have to know whether the money he was receiving was 258 CONTRASTED CONDITIONS genuine or whether it was counterfeit. Here ie the old document, dated the first day of December, 1859. Now, what does it show ? It shows that this country at that time had 1,590 State banks of issue, exclusive of what were called * State banks and their branches ' 1,590 of them, and the notes of but fifty of those banks were at par. The notes of the 1,540 other banks were at a discount. There was not a bank in the State of Massachusetts that was quoted at par in the city of Philadelphia. There was not a note issued by any State bank in Ohio, or in any State bank in Pennsylvania, or any State bank in Illinois that was current at par outside of the jurisdiction and limits of the State. The money was fairly good within the State, but when you stepped across the State lines then the holder of that currency had to look out for the speculator and the shaver and stand a discount. And that was the kind of money with which we did the business of this country. And no man when he got some of that paper was certain that before morn- ing came the bank would not fail. [Laughter.] And then there were 890 broken, failed, and worthless banks, in addition to the 1,590, scattered throughout every State of the Union, whose notes had been put in circulation, had been taken by the people of this country, value given for such paper money, which proved to be worthless in the hands of the people, and of no more account than the paper upon which it was printed. The Republican party is against the re- turn to the State bank circulation. [Great applause.] 259 "Daniel Webster, away back in 1832, said in this city, and I cannot do better than to quote his words, upon this very subject of State banks : " * These State banks, lying under no restraint from the General Government or any of its institutions, issued paper money corresponding to their own sense of their immediate interests and hopes of gain. . . . I believe, gentlemen, " the experiment " must go through the experiment of State bank money. I believe that every part and every portion of our country will have a satisfactory test of what they call the " better currency." I believe we shall be blessed again with the currency of 1812, when money was the only uncurrent species of property. We have amidst all the distress that surrounds us men of power who condemn the national bank in every form, maintain the efficacy and efficiency of State banks for domestic exchange, and, amidst all the sufferings and terrors of " the experiment," cry out that they are establishing " a better currency." ' The experiment,' says Mr. Webster ' the experiment upon what? The experiment of one man upon the happiness, the well-being, and, I may also say, upon the lives of 12,000,000 human beings '63,000,000 to-day is what the experiment would mean ; it was 17,000,000 then ' the experiment that found us in health, the experiment that found us with the best currency on the face of the earth, the same from the North to the South, from Boston to St. Louis, and possessing the unlimited confidence of foreign coun- 260 CONTRASTED CONDITIONS tries, and which leaves us crushed, ruined, without gain at home and without credit abroad. The Gov- ernment of the United States stands chargeable, in my opinion, with a gross dereliction from duty in leav- ing the currency of the country entirely at the mercy of others without seeking to exercise over it any con- trol whatever. The means of exercising this con- trol rests in the wisdom of Congress. ... It is a power that cannot be yielded to others with safety to the country and with credit to them. The Govern- ment may as well give up to the States the power of making peace or war, leave the twenty-six inde- pendent States to select their own foes, raise their own troops, and conclude their own terms of peace. It might as well leave the States to impose their own duties and regulate their own terms of trade and commerce as to give up control over the currency in which the whole nation is interested.' [Applause.] " That was the language of Daniel Webster in 1832, and every word of it applies to the situation to-day. It is proposed by the leaders of the Democratic party to give up the national currency, which is the best in the world, and go back to this unstable and unsat- isfactory and worthless currency which Mr. Webster characterized as unfit to do the business of this great country. We have to-day gold and silver and paper money, each the equal of the other equal in debt- paying and in legal-tender power ; good not only at home, but good in every business corner of the world ; worth 100 cents on the dollar every week of CONTRASTED CONDITIONS 261 every month of every year. [Applause.] There is not a man in this great audience who has a national bank note in his purse to-night who knows where that note was issued. He does not know the city or the town or the county or the State from whence it came. He does not know whether it was issued in Maine or whether it was issued in California, and he does not care [great applause], because it is good wherever it was issued ; because the government of the United States stands behind it [applause], and that government has for its security the bonds of the United States, which sell at a premium in every money centre of the world. [Renewed applause.] Every dollar we have got, because the government stands behind it, is as good as every other dollar. There is one thing the people of this country have no business to trifle with, and that is the money of the country, which measures the products of your land and your labor, the products of your energy and your skill. [Applause.] That should be fixed and unalterable and unchangeable, and that is its situation to-day. The currency of this country should be as national as its flag. [Applause.] It should be as unsullied as the national conscience and as sound as the government itself. [Applause.] And there is not a business man or workingman, no matter to what political party he belongs, if he will honestly vote his convictions, who will not vote against the party that proposes to re-establish a sys- tem under which this country lost millions upon 262 CONTRASTED CONDITIONS millions of dollars. [Applause.] We have had all of the Confederate currency we want. [Loud cheers.] We are for United States currency in some form for all time in the future. [Applause.] And we are not only opposed to Confederate currency, but we are opposed to British political economy. We not only fight for our industries and our labor, that they may be prosperous and well paid, but we insist that when they have earned their money they shall be paid in a dollar worth one hundred cents. [Great cheer- ing.] When a workingman gives ten hours a day to his employer ten full hours he is entitled to be paid in a dollar worth full one hundred cents. [Applause.] Free trade shaves down his labor first, and then scales down his pay by rewarding him in a worthless and a depreciated State currency. [Ap- plause.] The one reduces his wages, and the other cheats him in the pay. [Applause.] And that is the Democratic platform of 1892. [Applause.] No man can escape it. Mr. Hill undertook to do it in his Brooklyn speech, but Mr. Hill undertook to do in that speech what the National Democratic Con- vention had declared by solemn vote it would not do. [Applause.] And then, besides, if I may be permitted to speak with the greatest respect of Mr. Hill and in perfectly parliamentary language, Mr. Hill is hardly in a position to make a platform for the Democratic party which the Democratic con- vention rejected when he himself was rejected by the same party. [Prolonged cheers.] He says it ia COXTRASTED COXDITIOXS 263 true that protection is unconstitutional, but he is willing for the good of the country to take it in small quantities [great laughter], even of the un- constitutional article. He says protection is a fraud, but he is in favor of incidental protection that is, he is in favor of an incidental fraud. A fraud by accident he does not object to. A fraud by a casualty he sees no objection to, or a fraud by inci- dent ; but protection plain and simple, says Mr. Hill, although he tries to fix up a new platform, is a fraud upon the American people. And he says it is unconstitutional. 'Protection unconstitutional? I know of but one constitution which it violates and that is the constitution of the Confederate States. [Long applause and cheers.] It is in direct viola- tion of that instrument. But we are not operating under it. [Laughter.] That instrument went down before the resistless armies of Grant and Sherman and Sheridan [cheers], and the Constitution of Washington and Lincoln was sustained. [Applause.] And that is the Constitution under which we are operating to-day the Constitution of Washington and of Lincoln and of Grant. [Cheers.] " Unconstitutional ? That is the last objection of the Democratic leaders. [Laughter.] It usually precedes immediate acquiescence and surrender. [Laughter.] It comes after they have tried every other objection. They do not seem to know that the mnn who made the first Protective Tariff law we ever had, in 1789 the men who made the first Protective 264 CONTRASTED CONDITIONS Tariff law made the Constitution of the United States. [Loud cheers.] James Madison, a member of the Constitutional Convention, and who afterward became President of the United States, reported that bill to Congress. It passed the House of Represen- tatives, composed as that body was largely of members of the Constitutional Convention ; it passed that body unanimously, and passed the Senate of the United States by a vote of five to one, and in that body were a large number of men who made the Constitution itself. And that Protective Tariff law was finally signed by George Washington, the President of the United States. [Applause.] " That is not all. I have always liked the fathers, for they had a blunt, plain way of saying what they meant. They put into that first protective law what has never appeared in a Protective Tariff law since. They put into the preamble of that law exactly what they meant. What did they say ? They said, * We levy these duties to raise money to pay the debts of the government; to provide money for the expenses of the United States, and to encourage and protect manufactures in the United States.' [Enthusiastic cheering.] There is not a historic Democrat, from Jefferson down to Cleveland excluding Mr. Cleve- land who has not always sustained the constitution- ality of a Protective Tariff. Jefferson sustained it, as did Jackson and Madison and Wright and Ben ton and Buchanan, and dozens and dozens more of names well known in the political history of our country,- CONTKASTED CONDITIONS 265 Is Grover Cleveland a better constitutional lawyer than Thomas Jefferson ? [Shouts of ' No.'] Is Adlai Stevenson a better constitutional lawyer than James Madison ? [Laughter.] Is Governor Rus- sell a safer expounder of the Constitution than Daniel Webster ? [Applause and cries of ' No.'] Is Henry Watterson safer than Henry Clay? [Shouts of ' No.'] Are all of them combined as safe to be relied upon as the Supreme Court of the United States, which, over and over again, has sustained the consti- tutionality of a Protective Tariff? [Applause and cries of ' No.'] Have Mr. Cleveland and the other Democratic leaders forgotten that within twelve months the Supreme Court of the United States has put its judicial sanction upon the tariff law of 1890 ? [Applause.] And if that is not a Protective Tariff law [great laughter] it is the result of accident and not design. [Long applause and cheers.] Protective tariffs are not only constitutional, but in our own experience they have proved wholesome to the great body of the American people. [Applause.] No nation in the world has done so well as ours ; not one. Match it if you can under any circum- stances the world over. [Applause.] We are the youngest nation on the face of the earth, and yet we have reached the first rank in mining, in manu- facture, and in agriculture of all the nations the wide world over. [Applause.] But they said your protective tariffs, and especially the law of 1890, would build a Chinese wall around this country, and 266 CONTRASTED CONDITIONS that you could neither get out or come in. [Laugh-* ter.] That is what they said in 1890. That is what they said in 1891. And if results did not overtake predictions, the Democratic party would be the great- est party of the world. [Laughter.] If that party could be only unembarrassed by facts ! [Great ap- plause.] Keep us out of the home market ? I said in Tre- mont Temple a little more than a year ago that this Protective Tariff law would vindicate itself. You believed it then you know it now. [Loud applause and cheers.] Shut us out from our for- eign trade? Why, the last twelve months, under the operation of the new law, we have had more foreign trade than we ever had in any twelve months of our national history. [Applause.] Our foreign trade amounted last year to $1,890,000,000, a point never reached before in the history of the United States. [Great applause.] They called the Fifty- first Congress, which was Republican the Congress over which the Czar presided [tremendous cheer- ing] they called it a billion-dollar Congress. More than that it was a billion-and-eight- hundred-and-ninety-million-dollar Congress. We sent more American products to Europe in the last twelve months in volume and in value than we ever sent in any twelve months since the govern- ment began. One billion and thirty million dollars of American products went to Europe, $849,000,000 of European products came to the United States, and COXTKASTED CONDITIONS 267 Europe paid us $240,000,000 in gold to settle the balance of trade in favor of the American producer. [Applause.] We never had so good a business at home as we have got now, and we never had so large a business abroad as we have got now. And I noticed in the Evening Post, or the Morning Post, of the city of Boston, a leading, double-leaded editorial, telling how prosperous the Commonwealth of Massa- chusetts and the city of Boston are to-day. I don't know what the politics of that paper are [great laughter], and I don't care, because there are no politics in facts. [Cheers.] Ah ! but they say, if you had not the Protective Tariff things would be a little cheaper. Well, whether a thing is cheap or whether it is dear depends upon what we can earn by our daily labor. Free trade cheapens the product by cheapening the producer. Protection cheapens the product by elevating the producer. [Applause.] Under free trade the trader is the master and the producer the slave. Protection is but the law of nature, the law of self-preservation, of self-develop- ment, of securing the highest and best destiny of the race of man. [Cheers.] " Grover Cleveland says, strangely, in his letter : 'We must consult morals as well as maxims.' [Laughter.] I suppose he means by that that pro- tection is immoral. Immoral ! Why, if protection builds up and elevates 63,000,000 of people, the influence of those 63,000,000 of people elevates the rest of the world. [Great applause.] We cannot 268 CONTRASTED CONDITIONS take a step in the pathway of progress without bene- iiting mankind everywhere. Weil, they say, ' Buy where you can buy the cheapest.' That is one of their maxims. "Buy where you can buy the cheap- est. Of course, that applies to labor as to everything else. Let me give you a maxim that is a thousand times better than that, and it is a protection maxim : ' Buy where you can pay the easiest/ [Great ap- plause.] And that spot of earth is where labor wins its highest rewards. What has this Protective Tariff law of 1890 done ? Why, it has increased factories all over the United States. It has built new ones, it has enlarged old ones. It has started the pearl button business in this country. [Laugh- ter.] We used to buy our buttons made in Austria by the prison labor of Austria. We are buying our buttons to-day made by the free labor of America. [Applause.] We had 11 button factories before 1890; we have 85 now. We employed 500 men before 1890, at from $12 to $15 a week ; we employ 8,000 men now, at from $18 to $35 a week. [Cheers.] The value of the output before 1890 was less than $500,000; it is $3,500,000 to-day. We are making some of the finest cotton and woolen goods that can be made anywhere in the world. You are making them in Massachusetts. They are being made all over New England. Why, we are making lace in Texas, the home of Mills. [Laughter.] We are" making velvets and plushes in Philadelphia. When I was here, a COXTRASTED COXDITIOXS 269 little over a year ago, the complaint in every Democratic newspaper was that the tariff law of 1890 had put the tariff up on plushes, the garment that the poor girl and woman wore. Well, it is true that we did put the tariff up on plushes, but the price has come down. [Applause.] And we are making them in this, country, giving employment to hundreds and thousands of workingmen. And we are making tin plate in the United States. [Loud cheers.] We have made in the last fifteen months 13,000,000 pounds. Ah ! but they say, you import the black sheets from abroad. Well, we have, some, but we have made 5,000,000 of tin plates from black sheets made in American steel mills by American working- men. [Applause.] Supposing we did import some of the steel sheets and do the tinning that gives em- ployment to labor. But what they said was that we could not tin the sheet steel. That was the objection originally to this tin plate tariff. Why, I saw within the last three weeks, in the State of Indiana, in the city of Ellwood, one of the most magnificent tin plate mills in the world, manned by American work- ingmen, and I saw them make tin plate from the rolled steel down to the bright and shining plate plate as bright and shining as was ever made in Swansea, Wales. [Applause.] Cannot make tin plate? Why, we can make anything wo want to make. [Great cheering.] We could not make it under a Democratic revenue tariff, of course. [Ap- plause.^ 270 CONTEASTED CONDITIONS "Well, but they said this tariff law of 1890 was going to increase the price of the necessaries of life, and was going to diminish the wages of labor. It has done neither. The necessities of life are cheaper to-day than they were eighteen months ago. The commodities that go into the household of every man and woman are cheaper to-day than they were eighteen months ago, and the price of labor has in- creased to some extent, as shown by the report of the Senate Committee, consisting of three Republicans and two Democrats, as shown by the reports of the Commissioners of Labor of Indiana, of Massachusetts, of Michigan, and of the State of New York. [Ap- plause.] These reports came so thick and fast that they confused the leaders of the Democratic party, and they have resorted to extraordinary proceedings to break their force. They have gone into the courts. They are persecuting poor Peck. [Laughter.] The whole National Committee is on his back. " We are just now two years, day after to-morrow, from the passage of this law of 1890. We were just two years in the national campaign of 1844 from the passage of the protective law of 1842. Mr. Polk got in under false pretenses that the Democratic party would not destroy the tariff. When he got in his party did destroy it. Look out for false prophe- siers. Men must stand on their platforms made by their national parties. [Applause.] No man is higher than his party. Every man must obey the law of the convention that nominates him. [Ap- CONTRASTED CONDITIONS 271 plause.] Aye, did you remember that historical incident? The trial of this year is between the Republicans and the Democrats on the line of pro- tection and free trade. They can't get away from it if they would. They mean free trade and nothing else. Ah ! listen. Let me just read one more word that Mr. Webster says. He describes how the mills of Lowell have been closed up ; in your own State, way back in 1848, how 800 men were thrown out of employment, how 3,000 in another place in your own State, how 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 in the State of Pennsylvania were dismissed from employment under the tariff of 1846, and then he characterizes this free trade. He says : ' The imports of iron since the new tariff are enormous, . . . and here the in- crease is in articles of the highest manufacture that is, articles in which the greatest quantity of labor is incorporated, for there seems to be in this policy ' listen to his words ' there seems to be in this policy a bloodhound scent to follow labor and to run it down and to seize it, and strangle it wherever it may be found.' " 272 CONTRASTED CONDITIONS about $3,000,000. In 1892 the amount of green- backs presented for redemption was $5,352,243, and during the same year $3,773,600 in treasury notes were presented for redemption. In 1893, after the change in administration, there were presented for redemption $55,319,125 in green- backs and $46,781,220 in treasury notes, or a total of $102,100,345. Thus there was presented for redemption in the first year paper money aggregating nearly three times the volume of all that had been presented in the previous fourteen years. What was the occasion for this sudden de- sire of the holders of greenbacks and treasury notes to have them redeemed in gold ? Was it not a lack of confidence? Was it not from the known fact that the proposed legislation of the Democratic party would tend to destroy our prosperity at home, and probably result in a failure to collect enough money to meet the current expenses and obligations of the government ? " Was it not from the fact that the revenues had fallen short in meeting the expenditures of the gov- ernment by $117,000,000, and that the treasury had been compelled to borrow that vast sum, and has since been compelled to borrow $62,000,000 more ? During the previous years the people had been so strong in their faith in the government that they were satisfied with any kind of money issued by the government. The government had been able to pro- duce such a financial equilibrium that the people OABBHT A. HOBAHT. SENATOR WILLIAM E. MASON. COXTTIASTKD CONDITIONS 275 were utterly indifferent whether they were given gold, silver, or paper. Even during Mr. Cleveland's first administration, confidence was unshaken because there was no Democratic Congress to disturb Repub- lican legislation or overthrow or disturb the sound financial policy, which was established by the lie- publican party. There had been no change in the status of the greenbacks or the treasury notes ; there had been no financial legislation, except the repeal of the purchase clause of the Sherman Act which simply stopped the buying of silver. " It was the same government. There had been simply a change of administration of the affairs of the government. One pledged to a new policy had been given power and hence came the universal lack of confidence ; not a lack of confidence in the people, or in our institutions, but a lack of confidence in those charged with the administration to conduct the government with safety and success. From March 4th, 1881, down to March 4th, 1893, thanks to the Funding Act of Hayes, Sherman, and Win- dom, the government of the United States had been calling in its bonds and paying them off from the surplus revenue in the treasury. Instead of the people demanding gold for their greenbacks the government was engaged in paying off the bonded indebtedness of the government in gold. The same work went on during Mr. Cleveland's first adminis- tration, but not without opposition from him. It will be -* einbered that the public debt which his 276 CONTRASTED CONDITIONS administration paid off was paid from the revenues of the government collected under Republican legis- lation. President Harrison paid off $296,000,000 of the public debt and turned over to Mr. Cleve- land's administration $124,000,000 surplus. There was not a moment from the inauguration of Presi- dent Harrison to the second inauguration of Mr. Cleveland in which we did not collect for every day of every year sufficient revenues to pay every demand and obligation of the government. " President Harrison's administration was a bond- paying, not a bond-issuing administration. The latest bond issue of President Cleveland, of $63,- 000,000, was made in secret with the great financiers of Europe, through their agents in the United States. It was made out of the sight of the public ; made upon terms which were harsh and humiliating to the great government of the United States ; made at a lower price than the existing bonds of the govern- ment were being sold in the open markets of this country and the great commercial centres of the world, and made at a higher rate of interest than that paid on bonds sold six months before. The bonds under contract to-day are selling in advance of the price received by the government, both in this country and in England. The President sold the bonds at 104J, the syndicate sold them at 112i, a gain of 71, and the subscribers to the syndicate are now selling their bonds at from 116 to 120. " It was a hard bargain for the government, but it CONTRASTED CONDITIONS 277 is not the only hard bargain we have had to bear. There have been a long series of them. The hard- bargain business commenced in November, 1892, and the bargains have been getting harder and harder ever since. Out of it all, however, we get some faint ray of satisfaction. It must be gratifying to every American citizen to observe that the people of our own country and of England both place a higher estimate upon the bonds of the United States than do those who are temporarily administering its govern- ment. We ought to realize by this time that we should not do our work nor make our loans in Europe. Let us place what options we have with our own capitalists, and our orders with our own manufacturers, who, in the past, have been always abundantly able to meet every need and demand of the government and of the people. " The people have before them in the near future a greater and broader contest to wage, which will give the control of the government, as I believe, back to the Republican party. Until then we can do nothing but wait, as patiently as we can, and submit to the inevitable, hard as it is. " If anybody thinks that our wage-earners, our farmers, our trades-people, and the great masses of our countrymen, in common with them, are going to be satisfied permanently with the adjustment of their w: during all of which period the Cleveland administration was in control of every branch of the government, were : From customs, $131,818,530.62; from internal revenue, $147,111,- 232.81 ; the receipts from miscellaneous sources were $18,792,255.82 ; total receipts $297,722,019.25. The total expenditures during that period were $367,525,279.83. Here occurs the first deficiency. Here is the first time that the receipts fell short of the expenditures of the government, the deficiency being$69,803,260.58. Is it any wonder that there was a deficiency when we consider the condition of panic, poverty, and business paralysis which prevailed at that CONTRASTED CONDITIONS 283 time and which immediately followed the restoration to full power of the Democratic party ? The law con- tinued in operation until August, 1894, and for the mouths of July and August, 1894, the receipts from customs were : $26,828,595.47 ; from internal rev- enue, $25,252,094.89 ; the receipts from miscel- laneous sources were $2,715,971.13 ; total receipts, ,796,661.49. The total expenditures for those two months were $68,305,219.38, a deficiency of '.,508,557.89. On August 28th, 1894, the Brice- Gorman Act went into operation. The receipts under that law from September 1st, 1894, to September 1st, 1895, were : From customs, $161,391,367.76 ; from internal revenue, $115,877,954.01 ; the receipts from miscellaneous sources were $15,089,503.98; total receipts for that year, $292,358,825.75. The expenditures during this first year were $358,953,- 0-5.23, an excess of expenditures over receipts for the first year of this Democratic Tariff Act of $66,- 594,489.48. During the first year, under the Brice- Gorman law, the receipts from customs and internal revenue were $276,269,321.77. During the first fiscal year, under the Republican Tariff law, receipts from customs and internal revenue were $331,424,- 036.72, a difference in favor of the Republican law of $55,000,000. Under the Republican law sugar WMS free; under the Democratic law sugar is taxed. Even in the last fiscal year when the Republican law in operation, with universal di throughout the country, there wus more money collected from 284 CONTKASTED CONDITION'S customs duties and internal revenue than was col- lected during the first year under the Democratic Brice-Gorman Tariff law. " The statement of the condition of the United States Treasury, on the 31st day of August 1895, shows an excess of expenditures over receipts for the month of August of $3,693,103.30. " During the first nine months of the Tariff law of 1890 the receipts from customs and internal revenue equaled within $17,000,000 the total receipts from customs and internal revenue of twelve months un- der the Brice-Gorman law. The average monthly receipts from customs .and internal revenue, under the Republican law, for the first nine months, was over $28,000,000, and under the Brice-Gorman law was $33,000,000. " The average monthly receipts from customs duties during the operation of the Republican Tariff law were $17,066,774.67 ; the average monthly receipts from customs duties under the Democratic Tariff law of 1894 were $13,167,533.63 a difference in favor of the Republican law of $3,899,241.04 per month. One thing must not be forgotten that at no time from the passage of the Republican Tariff law of 1890 down to the close of President Harrison's ad- ministration did that law fail to raise all the revenue needed to meet every expense of the general gov- ernment, and during no part of that period did the gold reserve fall below $100,000,000. The revenue- vaising power of the Republican Tariff law was only CONTRASTED CONDITIONS 285 crippled and impaired after the country had placed in power a full Democratic administration pledged to overthrow it. " It is loudly proclaimed through the Democratic press that prosperity has come. I sincerely hope that it has. Whatever prosperity we have has been a long time coming, and after nearly three years of business depression, a ruinous panic, and a painful and widespread suffering among the people, I pray that we may be at the dawn of better times and of enduring prosperity. I have believed it would come, in some measure, with every successive Republican victory. I have urged for two years past that the election of a Republican Congress would strip the Democratic party of power to further cripple the enterprises of the country, and would be the begin- ning of a return of confidence, and that general and permanent prosperity could only come when the Democratic party was voted out of power in every branch of the national government, and the Repub- lican party voted in, pledged to repeal their destruc- tive and un-American legislation, which has so seriously impaired the prosperity of the people and the revenues and credit of the government. "It is a most significant fact, however, that the activity in business we have now is chiefly confined to those branches of industry which the Democratic party was forced to leave with some protection, notably, iron and steel. There is no substantial im- provement in those branches of domestic industry 286 CONTRASTED CONDITIONS where the lower duties, or no duties of the Demo- cratic tariff, have sharpened and increased foreign competition. These industries are still lifeless ; and if not lifeless are unsatisfactory and unprofitable, both to capital and labor. " There is a studied effort in certain quarters to show that the apparent prosperity throughout the country is the result of Democratic tariff legislation. I do not think that those who assert this honestly and sincerely believe it. It is worth remembering, and can never be forgotten, that there was no revival of business, no return of confidence or gleam of hope in business circles until the elections of 1894, which, by unprecedented majorities, gave the popular branch of Congress to the Republican party, and took away from the Democratic party the power to do further harm to the industries of the country and the occu- pations of the people. This was the aim, meaning, and purpose of that vote. With the near and certain return of the Republican party to full possession of power in the United States, conies naturally and logically increased faith in the country and an assur- ance to business men that for years to come they will have rest and relief from Democratic in competency in the management of the industrial and financial affairs of the government. Whatever prosperity we are having (and just how much nobody seems to know) and with all hoping for the best, and hoping that it may stay and increase, and yet all breathless with sus- pense, is in spite of Democratic legislation, and not be- CONTRASTED CONDITIONS 287 cause of it. You would suppose in reading some of the Democratic newspapers and Democratic literature of the country that there has been a wonderful increase of wages, and the Democratic leaders are claiming it as the direct result of Democratic tariff legislation. It is true there has been an increase in wages in some brunches of industry, but a careful analysis will show that wherever the increase has been had, it has been in those departments of industry where protection \vas not wholly withdrawn or the least withdrawn, or where the home markets are secure from foreign competition ; and where there is the most protec- tion there will be found the best wages. Consider- ing the condition in which the country has been for two years and a half, any amount of work resumed, no matter how little ; any increase in the demand for labor, no matter how insignificant, would mean more and better wages. For*two years and a half wages were not only abnormally low, but employ- ment was so scarce and employes so plenty that they could be had upon any terms and at any price. It was not a question of wage ; it was a question of work; and men, rather than accept charity, and in order that they might give their families even scanty support, were ready to work at any price and sit any employment. It must be remembered also that in the fewest branches of industry, if any, wage scale has been restored to what it was in 1 The increase of wtigos in 1895, much as it may be and gratifying as it is, does not equal the decrease of 288 CONTRASTED CONDITIONS wages from 1892 to 1895 ; and there is yet a vast difference, as every workingman realizes, between the price paid labor now and the price paid labor before the Democratic party took control, in March, 1893. This difference represents much, very much, to the workingmen of the country, and deprives many fire- sides of the comforts they enjoyed before 1893. Moreover, not only are the wages less now than in 1892, but a vast number of men employed then are out of employment now. I do not propose to make comparisons between the wages paid labor now and the wages paid labor prior to 1893. That is unnec- essary. Every man who labors in this country knows whether he is employed now as satisfactorily and steadily as then, and whether he is paid as well now as he was when Republican policies were in operation during Republican administrations. Every workingman knows what his pay-roll is now, and knows what his pay-roll was then ; and he knows it better than anybody can tell him ; and he knows better than anybody else the exact measure of differ- ence between the wages he receives now and the wages he received then. Nor is he in doubt as to the cause of this difference. He knows when he lost it and how he lost it ; and he will vote at every opportunity in opposition to the party whose policy he believes produced it. This subject, therefore, can well be left with the laboring men of the country. " No one can observe the shrinkage of the wool pro- duction in the United States without being pro- CONTRASTED CONDITIONS 289 founuly impressed with the injustice and cr-inu, of that part of the tariff law of 1894, which places wool upon the free list. Among the heaviest losses since 1893 are those of Pennsylvania, which has fallen from 9,823,296 pounds to 5,899,867 pounds ; Texas, from 30,341,857 pounds to 22,669,809 pounds ; West Virginia, from 4,627,887 pounds to 2,149,393 pounds; Ohio, from 21,893,625 pounds to 18,534,610 pounds ; Michigan, from 16,370,536 pounds to 12,140,524 pounds ; California, from 26,808,444 pounds to 23,- 153,956 pounds; and New York, from 9,328,300 pounds to 6,250,392 pounds. The total product of the United States for 1893 was 348,538,138 pounds. In 1894, 325,210,712 pounds, and in 1895, 294,296,- 726 pounds. It is no wonder that the wool-growers of Ohio, in their convention at Columbus, last Wednesday, September 4th, unanimously adopted {he following resolution : " ' Resolved, That the singling out of wool among jo-called raw materials for sacrifice by the late Con- gress, while the " less important ones were cared for and protected, was an outrage upon agriculture, in- volving far greater evils than party perfidy and party dishonor/' and should be resented at the polls and elsewhere in every proper way/ " Mr. Briee will not be long in discovering that the farmers of the State of Ohio do not accept the law of the trusts and combinations as the final settlement of this great economic question. This subject can well be left with the intelligent farmers of Ohio. 290 CONTKASTED CONDITIONS They will have the opportunity at the coming elec tion to directly commend or condemn our junior Senator in striking down one of their greatest in- dustries and chief sources of revenue. They will not forget that our candidate for Senator, ex-Governor Foraker, is opposed to free wool, but favors full and just protection to this most important industry." THE TWO PARTIES ON SILVER. The two skeleton maps show far more impressively than any array of figures could how the two parties stand on the question of free-silver coinage and honest money. On the Republican map all the States in which the Republican party is for free coinage, and also all the States in which it is doubtful on the sub- ject and has dodged or straddled it, are shaded, The figures on each State show the number of elec- toral votes to which it is entitled, the delegates in National Convention being double that number. At a glance it is seen that the battle has been fought and won in all the great States of the North and West as far as the western line of the Dakotas and Kansas, and also in Oregon, Wyoming, and Wash- ington, and that Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama, iron and coal-producing States, have .broken through the centre of the South, while West Virginia and South Carolina have also joined the right side. But the Southern States are not needed to elect a President. The solid body of Northern States be- SENATOR CUSHMAN K. DAVIS. SENATOR HENRY C. LODGE. CONTRASTED CONDITIONS 893 tween the Atlantic and the western border of the Dakotas and Kansas, now all Republican, including Missouri, West Virginia, and Kentucky, are of one mind on the silver question. They cast, including Wyoming, 302 electoral votes, or more than two- thirds of the whole, without any from the South or the Pacific Coast. In all these States the Republi- cans had at the last election a plurality, and in all except Kentucky, Missouri, and Nebraska, which have thirty-eight votes, it had a clear majority over Democrats, Populists, and Silver men added together. The Democratic map presents a vast dark body with a few white spots. The States that have de- clared against free-silver coinage are white namely, the eleven Eastern States, Minnesota, Michigan, and South Dakota. The States which have not yet de- clared or have evaded the question are half shaded namely, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Louisiana. All the other States are fully shaded, the Democratic party in each of these States having declared in con- vention or by choice of delegates for free-silver coinage. Including all the undecided and doubtful, the anti-silver Democrats might muster over a third of the delegates in Convention, but far short of a majority. No man of practical sense can look on the map and imagine that the almost solid Democ- racy of the West and South is going to yield its pas- sionately-cherished opinions to the small fraction of the party at the East, CONTRASTED CONDITIONS The figures do not quite tell the whole story. For generations the seat of power in the Democratic party, its home and its citadel, has been the South. The Democrats of the North and West have been a subject race, from boyhood educated to obey the dic- tation of Southern leaders, to accept and fight for their theories, and to take without flinching the popular disfavor and the annual beating which sup- port of such theories involved in most Northern States. It is past conception that a Northern or Eastern Democrat should hope to defy and resist the power which has ruled the party for more than half a century. The great body of its electoral votes has always come from the South, far more than half its votes in Congress, nearly all of its experienced men and practiced leaders in either House. But the home and citadel of the Republican party has always been the free North, originally the Eastern and Cen- tral States, between the Atlantic and the Mississippi, including later their many children of the West. In that region the convictions of the Republican party are formed, its electoral votes are secured, and most of its votes in Congress. The opinions of the East and Central North are as certain to shape the action of the Republican as the opinions of the South are to shape the action of the Democratic party. Let business men throughout the country contrast these two pictures, and it will not take them long to judge which party they can trust in any question of money or finance. The ideas of the South are those CONTRASTED CONDITIONS 295 of the plantation. The Republican ^arty Is of necessity, as it ever has been, the instrument by which the millions of wage-earners and of business men have defended and promoted their interests. The North tests every question of money by the needs of the wage-earners and the business men. For more than thirty years they have been perpetu- ally assailed and often imperilled by the theories and crazy notions of the Democratic party, never more unreasoning or more dangerous than now, when it has gone mad over free coinage of silver. To intrust power to such a party was the height of folly in 1892, when its destructive capacity had not been tested. To-day it would be for wage-earners and business men an act of impossible madness. CHAPTER XIV. SOME VIEWS ON PUBLIC QUESTIONS. Humorous speeches The feeder of Great Britain A leap in the dark Give the officials scope Importance of agriculture Arbitration Respect and retrospect Let England take care of herself. IT will be interesting to quote a few paragraphs from the humorous speeches made by Governor McKinley. In support of the tariff commis- sion in 1882 he aroused the attention of the country, and indicated to old politicians that a new force was arising in national politics, and that it was well to watch the career of William McKinley. In the House he said then : " Who has demanded a tariff for revenue only, such as is advocated by our friends on the other side? What portion of our citizens? What part of our population ? Not the agriculturist ; not the laborer; not the mechanic; not the manufacturer; not a petition before us, to my knowledge, ask- ing for an adjustment of tariff rates to a revenue basis. England wants it, demands it not for our good, but hers; for she is more anxious to main- 296 PUBLIC QUESTIONS 297 tain her old position of supremacy than she is to pro- mote the interests and welfare of the people of this republic, and a great party in this country voices her interests. Our tariffs interfere with her profits. They keep at home what she wants. We are inde- pendent of her ; not she of us. She would have America the feeder of Great Britain, or, as Lord Sheffield put it, she would be ' the monopoly of our consumption and the carriage of our produce/ She would manufacture for us, and permit us to raise wheat and corn for her. We are satisfied to do the latter, but unwilling to concede to her the monopoly of the former. " Manufacturers, farmers, laboring men, indeed all the industrial classes in the United States, are sever- ally and jointly interested in the maintenance of the present or a better tariff law which shall recognize in all its force the protection of American producers and American productions. Our first duty is to our own citizens. " Free trade may be suitable to Great Britain and its peculiar social and political structure, but it has no place in this republic, where classes are unknown, and where caste has long since been banished ; where equality is a rule ; where labor is dignified and hon- orable ; where education and improvement are the individual striving of every citizen, no matter what may be the accident of his birth, or the poverty of his early surroundings. Here the mechanic of to-day is the manufacturer of a few years hence. Under 898 PUBLIC QUESTIONS such conditions, free trade can have no abiding place here. We are doing very well ; no other nation has done better, or makes a better showing in the world's balance sheet. We ought to be satisfied with the progress thus far made, and contented with our out- look for the future. .We know what we have done and what we can do under the policy of protection. We have had some experience with a revenue tariff, which neither inspires hope, nor courage, nor confi- dence. Our own history condemns the policy we oppose, and it is the best vindication of the policy which we advocate. It needs no other. It furnished us in part the money to prosecute the war for the Union to a successful termination ; it has assisted largely in furnishing the revenue to meet our great public expenditures and diminish with unparalleled rapidity our great national debt ; it has contributed in securing to us an unexampled credit ; it has de- veloped the resources of the country and quickened the energies of our people ; it has made us what the nation should be, independent and self-reliant ; it has made us industrious in peace, and secured us inde- pendence in war ; and we find ourselves in the begin- ning of the second century of the republic without a superior in industrial arts, without an equal in com- mercial prosperity,with a sound financial system, with an overflowing treasury, blest at home and at peace with all mankind. Shall we reverse the policy which has rewarded us with such magnificent results ? Shall we abandon the policy which pursued for twenty PUBLIC QUESTIONS 299 years, has produced such unparalleled growth and prosperity ?" The Morrison tariff bill, which proposed a hori- zontal reduction of the Act of 1883, was under dis- cussion in the House on April 30th, 1884, and in closing his speech in opposition, Representative McKinley said in conclusion : " Every one of the leading industries of this country will be injuriously affected by this proposed change, and no man can predict the extent of it. The producers of cottons and woolens, of iron, steel, and glass, must suffer disastrously if this bill is enacted into law ; and the proprietors of these establishments are neither robbers nor highwaymen, as the free- traders love to characterize them. They have been real benefactors, and while some of them have grown opulent, in the main they do not represent the rich classes of the country. Their entire capital is in active employment. Many of them are large bor- rowers. Your proposed action will affect the values of their plants, unless except for the purposes em- ployed, will diminish the value of their invested capital, will decrease their sales and the ability of their customers to buy, and in many cases result in total overthrow and bankruptcy. You can do this, if you will. You have the power in this House to accomplish this great wrong; but let me beg you to pause before you commence the work of destroying a great economic system under which the country has grown and prospered far in advance of every 300 PUBLIC QUESTIONS other nation of the world. A system established by the founders of the government, recognized by the first Congress which ever sat and deliberated in council in this nation, sanctioned in the second Act ever passed by Congress, upheld by our greatest states- men, living or dead, vindicated by great results and justified by all our experience, achieving industrial triumphs without a parallel in the world's history. Its maintenance is yet essential to our progress and prosperity. The step proposed is a grave one. No man on this floor can determine its consequences or predict its results. " It is a leap in the dark. No interest is press- ing it. No national necessity demands it. No true American wants it. If it is a party neces- sity to enforce Democratic doctrines and disci- pline a little segment of the party, you can afford to wait, or clear your decks of mutineers in some other way : let the ship be saved, and punish your insubordinate associates without endangering great interests temporarily confided to your care. The interests of this great people are higher and greater than the ambitions or interests of any party. The free-traders have already demonstrated that they are in control of the Democratic party, and they are a large majority of that political organization ; but they are happily in the minority in this country. They may dictate the policy here by party caucus, they may disturb the business of the country while yet in power, but they will not, under the policy PUBLIC QUESTIONS 301 they are now pursuing, be long permitted to dominate the popular branch of Congress, happily the only branch of the government which they now control." On July 14th, 1886, there was under discussion a resolution from the Ways and Means Committee directing the Secretary of the Treasury to pay a part of the surplus which had given Grover Cleveland so much trouble, but which has not existed in his present administration on the public debt. Major McKinley made an extended speech on the subject which teemed with figures. His remarks then are particularly important now, showing as they do that he did not believe the hands of the President should be tied ; in other words were he in Congress now he would be active in opposition to the Demo- cratic and Populistic proposition to repeal the author- ity to issue bonds. The Major said, among other things : " I believe it to be a judicious thing to give the officers charged with the management of the finan- cial affairs of the government, charged by the people, the power to call the bonds or withhold a call for bonds whenever the condition of the treasury will permit the one or the other. The hands of the President and Secretary should not be tied ; they should have full power to act under the laws as they are, and then be held to the highest responsibility and strictest accountability. Therefore, Mr. Chair- man, unless the amendment I offered at the begin- ning of this discussion, and another amendment 303 PUBLIC QUESTIONS wliicli will be offered by the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Reed), and still another which will be pre- sented by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Long), shall be adopted by this house, I shall feel constrained to give a negative vote on the resolution presented by the Committee on Ways and Means. Of course, we cannot help, I cannot help, no gentle- man on this side can help, the Democratic party voting to-day a want of confidence in its own admin- istration. 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 reso- lution means if it becomes a law, and that is what you are doing when you vote for it." Major McKinley has always appreciated the im- portance of tfc.e agriculturist in our national life. He delivered a most eulogistic speech before the Ohio State Grange, on December 13th, 1887, of which the following are extracts : " Farmers could manage to exist rather generously, if not luxuriously, without us, but we could not well exist without them. " Agriculture may fairly be classed as the founda- tion of all industries; it is intimately related to sv*ry field of labor. No matter what our employ- ment, we must draw our life every day afresh from the soil, and our daily necessities can be supplied from no other source. All trade, all commerce, all business is but the result, direct or remote, of the industrial pursuit in which you are engaged. Our PUBLIC QUESTION'S 303 city, in its earlier and later progress, is peculiarly the offspring of agriculture. From it has been drawn our chief income ; it has been the source of our reve- nue. We have been doing little else for thirty years but meeting the demands and supplying the wants of the farmers. " Tell me how the land is held, and I can tell you almost to a certainty the political system of the country, its form of government, and its political character. When land is divided into small farms, the property, as a rule, of those who till them, there is an inducement, ambition, and facility for inde- pendence, for progress, for wider thought and higher attainments in individual, industrial life. Over such a population no government but a free one, under equal laws and equal rights, with equal opportuni- ties, can exist for any length of time. The small farm, thoroughly worked, was the ancient model, commended by the early sages and philosophers ; as old Vergil put it, * Praise a large farm, cultivate a small one.' We must avoid in this country the hold- ing of large tracts of land by non-resident owners for speculative purposes, and set our faces like flint against alien land-holding in small or large tracts. Our public domain must be re-dedicated to our own people, and neither foreign syndicates nor domestic corporations must be permitted to divert it from the hallowed purpose of actual settlement by real farm- ers. "One of the great lessons of history is that agri- 34 PUBLIC QUESTIONS culture cannot rise to Its highest perfection and reach its fullest development without the aid of commerce, manufactures, and mechanical arts. All are essential to the healthy growth and highest advancement of the others ; the progress of one insures the prosperity of another. There are no conflicts, there should be no antagonisms. They are indispensable to each other. AVhatever enfeebles one is certain to cripple the rest. "Let us accept the advice of the fathers of the Republic, heed their patriotic counsels, walk stead- fastly in their faith, preserve the mutual helpfulness and harmonies of the industries, and maintain our independence, national, industrial, and individual, against all the world, and thus advance to the high destiny that devolves upon us and our posterity. I bespeak for you a pleasant 'and profitable meeting, and, with .thanks and best wishes to all, bid you good-night." To the laboring interests and to employers as well it is important to know what Major McKinley's views are on arbitration. They are shown in the closing paragraph of his speech on that subject in the House of Representatives, on April 2d, 1886: " I believe, Mr. Chairman, in arbitration, as in principle ; I believe it should prevail in the settle- ment of international differences. It represents a higher civilization than the arbitrament of war. I believe it is in close accord with the best thought and sentiment of mankind ; I believe it is the true PUBLIC QUESTIONS 305 way of settling differences 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 transporta- tion ; and if this House can contribute in the small- est measure, by legislative expression or otherwise, to these ends, it will deserve and receive the grati- tude of all men who love peace, good order, justice, and fair play." The Republican Presidential candidate delivered a speech on " Prospect and Retrospect," on Septem- ber 14th, 1887, before the Mahoning Valley Pioneer Association, of which this is a striking paragraph : " We can hardly conceive that the next generation will be so rich in fruitage, so prolific in invention, so marvelous in achievement, so wonderful in its work j but who can tell ? There seem to be a brain and a conscience and a manhood always ready to rise up and discover, at the appropriate moment, the forces and elements necessary in the onward march of man- kind. The things you and I have seen, great as they are, may be insignificant contrasted with the things unseen and yet to be developed. The ax and the rifle, the courage and the conscience, the brain and the brawn, the faith in God of the pioneer, lay the foundations of the splendid institutions which make possible our matchless achievements. The New Eng- land school-house, which came simultaneous with his 306 PUBLIC QUESTIONS cabin and stockade, was our flaming torch, which, carried grandly through the century, has filled the whole world with its light." The Home Market Club, of Boston, invited Major McKinley to address them on February 9th, 1888. At that time he spoke regarding free raw materials. The following selection from that speech, in view of the events since it was made, is most striking : "A revenue reformer who had recently visited your State, said to me a few days ago, that Massa- chusetts had already received all the benefits she could from protection, and that now her interests as well as her inclinations lay in the other direction that of free trade. Enlarging upon it he was forced to confess that the manufacturing thrift and activity everywhere seen in your commonwealth, the high rank you had taken, and the perfection reached in production, were the outcome of the system of Ameri- can protection ; but now free trade, or its equivalent or approximation, would place you in a position of commanding advantage over those portions of the country marked with less industrial development. If I were to admit the truth of my friend's discourse which I do not the situation would, in simple language, be this : Massachusetts owes her proud industrial position to a Protective Tariff, which she has enjoyed by the help of other States not so far advanced in manufactures, and which have neither so long nor so advantageously enjoyed its benefits. Now she does not need it for herself^ and is unwil.l- PUBLIC QUESTIONS 307 ing that any of her sister States shall profit by its assistance and enjoy its blessings. She used it to attain her high commercial position and manufactur- ing development. The newer States are now moving upward on the ladder which carried her before and above them. Now, as my friend would have it, she is ready to push the ladder down with all that is upon it. [Laughter.] This I know to be a base and ungenerous reflection upon Massachusetts, which her industrial people will be quick to resent, and which nothing in her behavior in the past would justify." On this same occasion Major McKinley delivered these additional gems of thought: " But if free wool will secure cheaper clothing to the people, by the same process of reasoning, cloth, duty free, and untaxed ready-made clothing will diminish the price still further, and give to the con- sumer the very consummation of low prices and cheap wearing apparel. If every consideration but the mere cheapness of the fabric be discarded, then no reason can be found why, with free wool, there should not come free cloth and free clothing. [Ap- plause.] Things, however, are sometimes the dear- est, when nominally they are the cheapest. The selling price of an article is not the only measure ; the ability to buy, the coin with which to purchase, is an important and essential element, and must not be dismissed from our consideration. If a man is without meaijs ant 1 withou* employment, and there 308 PUBLIC QUESTION'S is none of the latter to be had, everything is dear to him. The price is of the smallest consequence, however cheap, if it is beyond his reach. If my only means is my labor, and that is unemployed, whether things are cheap or dear is of little moment to me. "The manufacturers of New England, and more particularly the skilled labor employed by them, need a Protective Tariff, and require it equally with the industries and labor of other States. It is imperatively demanded, not only here, but in every section of the Union, if the present price of labor is to be continued and maintained. Your industries cannot compete successfully, even in this market, with the industries of England, France, Belgium and Ger- many, without a tariff, so long as the price paid labor here exceeds the price paid labor there from 50 to 75 per cent. This inequality can only be met by a tariff upon the products of cheap labor, high enough to compensate for the difference. You cannot compete except upon equal conditions and with like cost of the competing product. Free trade will either equalize the conditions by reducing your labor to that of the rival laborer on the other side, or it will close your factories and workshops and destroy home production and competition. " Free trade means cheap labor, and cheap labor means diminished comforts diminished capacity to buy, poor and enfeebled industries and a depend- ent condition generally. And every step taken in % ANDREW CARNEGIE HON UAZEM 8. PINGBEJk PUBLIC QUESTIONS 311 the direction of free trade, beginning with free raw material, is an advance, and a very long one and a very straight one, in the direction of reduced wages and a changed condition of the 'American working- man, not confined to the labor engaged in preparing raw materials for use, but will widen, and in the end enter every department of labor and skill. "I would secure the American market to the American producer [applause], and I would not hesitate to raise the duties whenever necessary to secure this patriotic end. [Applause.] I would not have an idle man or an idle mill or an idle spindle in this country if, by holding exclusively the Ameri- can market, we could keep them employed and run- ning. [Applause.] Every yard of cloth imported here makes a demand for one yard less of American fabrication. "Let England take care of herself; let France look after her interests ; let Germany take care of her own people, but in God's name let Americans look after America ! [Loud applause.] Every ton of steel imported diminishes that much of home pro- duction. Every blow struck on the other side upon an article which comes here in competition with;; like articles produced here, makes the demand for one blow less at home. Every day's labor upon the foreign products sent to the United States takes one day's labor from American work ing men. I would give the day's labor to our own, first, last, and all the time, and that policy which fails in this is opposed 312 PUBLIC QUESTIONS to American interests. To secure this is the great purpose of a Protective Tariff. Free-traders say, give it to the foreign workman, if ours will not per- form it at the same price and accept the same wages. Protectionists say no, the workingmen say no, and justly and indignantly resent this attempted degra- dation of their labor, this blow at their independence and manhood. "The party that tries to lead us back will be buried beneath popular indignation. [Applause.] From whom does this complaint come ? It comes from the scholars, so-called [laughter], and the poets, from whom we gladly take our poetry, but whose political economy we must decline to receive ; from the dilettanti and would-be diplomatists, the men of fixed incomes ; it comes from the men who ' toil not, neither do they spin ' [great applause], and from those who ' do not gather into barns ' [laughter], who have no investments except in . bonds and mort- gages, who want every thing cheap but money, every- thing easy to secure but coin, who prefer the customs and civilization of other countries to our own, and who find nothing so wholesome as that which is im- ported, whether manners or merchandise, and want no obstructions in the shape of a tariff placed upon the free use of both. [Applause and laughter.] CHAPTER XV. LIBERTY AND LABOR. "The hope of the Republic is in a citizenship that is faithful to home and family and devotedly loyal to country." " Mr. President, Members of the Illinois State Fed- eration of Labor, of the Trade and Labor Assembly of Chicago, and My Fellow- Citizens : I am glad to join with you in observing this, our one hundred and nineteenth National anniversary, that we may gather fresh inspirations in the cause of human freedom and equality and dedicate ourselves anew, in com- mon with our fellow-citizens everywhere, to the good work of maintaining the free Government which our fathers inaugurated more than a century ago. No city in America has a better right or a better reason to rejoice at its majesty and strength than Chicago, and no citizens of any city in any State should cele- brate it with more zeal and joy than her working people, who have done so much to make Chicago the great inland metropolis of our country, whose mar- velous progress is the admiration and wonder of the world. " We are a Nation of working people ; some one 313 314 LIBERTY AND LABOR has said that Americans are born busy, and that they never find time to be idle or indolent. We glory in the fact that in the dignity and elevation of labor we find our greatest distinction among the nations of the earth. The United States possesses practically as much energy or working power as Great Britain, Germany, and France combined, so that the ratio of working power falling to each American is more than that of to two people of any other nation. But with our improved and superior machinery each American laborer is enabled to accomplish, relatively, still more than his European competitor. The American laborer not only does more and better work, but there are more skilled, intelligent, and capable artisans here now in propor- tion to the total population than in any other coun- try of the world. No other country can boast of so great a percentage of producers among her instructed population, and none other can point to so large a number of enlightened and educated citizens. The census statistics of 1890 place the number of our citizens over ten' years of age engaged in gainful occupations at 22,735,000, while Sir Michael G. Mul- hall, the noted English statistician, refers to the fact that no other civilized country could ever before boast of 41,000,000 instructed citizens. Indeed, we may find in the able review of the industrial activi- ties of our country ^recently published by this distin- guished authority many striking texts for patriotic contemplation. He states very frankly : LIBERTY AND LABOR 315 " ' If we were to take a survey of mankind in ancient or modern times as regards the physical, mechanical, and intellectual force of nations, we find nothing to compare with the United States in this present year of 1895. The physical and mechanical power which has enabled a community of wood- cutters and farmers to become in less than one hun- dred years the greatest Nation in the world is the aggregate of the strong arms of men and women, aided by horse-power, machinery, and steam-power applied to the useful arts and sciences of every-day life. The power that traces a furrow in the prairie, sows the seed, reaps and threshes the ripe grain ; the power that converts wheat into flour, that weaves wool or cotton into textile stuffs and garments ; the power that lifts the mineral from the bowels of the earth, that forges iron and constructs railroads ; the power that builds up towns and cities in a word, whatever force is directed for the production, con- veyance, or distribution of the necessaries, comforts, or luxuries of life, may be measured at each National census with almost the same precision as that with which the astronomer indicates the dis- tances of the heavenly bodies.' " We shall not enter upon such a computation or study, interesting as it might bo, but you are to be congratulated upon the fact that in every field of progress and development Chicago has always been to the front and borne a most conspicuous part. Upon this proud record I feel that you are to be es- 316 LIBEETY AND LABOR pecially congratulated, for I am sure that to no class of her citizens is this great city so much indebted for her marvelous growth as to her wage-earners, arti- sans, and working people. It can truthfully be said that no other city in the country has been so shin- ing a light, so truly an example and model in enter- prise and energy for so many people in so many States as Chicago. Her people have set the pace for the great Northwest, now chasing other parts of the country in the race of progress and supremacy. It is fitting that they should rejoice, and above all most appropriate that they should select this glad anni- versary as the occasion for such jubilations. " This day, forever the most illustrious in our history, is crowded with patriotic memories. It belongs to history, and celebrates that only which is grand and inspiring in history. Every memory, every tradition, every event about it must inspire every patriot with true homage to country and with hope, courage, and confidence for the future. It is the baptismal day of freedom ; the day when the hearts of Young America are proud and glad and the hearts of the old are young again. It celebrates the grandest act in the history of the human race the Declaration of American Independence, and a ring- ing protest against usurpation and tyranny in that age and every other. It has no rival ; Lincoln's im- mortal Proclamation of Emancipation was but its fitting supplement and actual fulfillment. Yorktown pointed the way, but it was Appomattox that marked 'LIBERTY AND LABOR 317 the completed, unquestioned, glorious realization of both. " The Fourth of July calls us back to the most heroic era of American' annals, and I can conceive of nothing more profitable than a consideration of the origin and meaning of our National anniversary and a brief notice of some of the patriotic leaders who made its celebration possible. The day records the event which gave birth to the Nation, that glad event to humanity out of which has arisen the great Na- tional fabric that we now enjoy, and the preservation and advancement of which should be our highest and most sacred concern. We cannot study the early history of the country without marveling at the courage, the" foresight, the sagacity, and the broad- mindedness of the men who promulgated the Decla- ration of Independence and who subsequently launched a new government under a written Consti- tution. The men who framed the Declaration and Constitution seem now to have been inspired for their great work, to have been raised up by Jehovah, like His prophets of old, especially for the supreme duties and grave responsibilities He placed upon them. " Both instruments were in part the work of the same men, and never was the spirit and impulse of a preliminary document more apparent in the com- pleted act. What illustrious men constituted the Continental Congress of 1776 and most of them were young men, whose subsequent careers were as 318 LIBERTY AND LABOR distinguished and useful as their first great work in- dicated they would become ! Every American can proudly call that roll of honor without reservation, apology, or omission. From Virginia came Jeffer- son, its author; Harrison, Nelson, Wythe, the Lees, and Braxton, all famous in the annals of the State, and all freely risking life and fortune for their be- loved country. From Massachusetts came John Hancock, ' the outlawed but uncompromising Presi- dent ;' John Adams, ' the Colossus of Independence/ &nd his equally patriotic kinsman, Samuel Adams, 'the Father of the Revolution/ Near them sat Benjamin Franklin, the resourceful and wise philos- opher, the eloquent Edward Rutledge, of South Carolina, and those tireless and talented advocates of freedom and union, Thomas McKean and Csesar Rodney, of Delaware. In another group, perhaps, were the four brave men who in later years sat with Washington to frame and sign the Constitution Roger Sherman, of Connecticut; George Read, of Delaware, and George Clymer and James Wilson, of Pennsylvania. Near them were those sweet- spirited and able counselors and orators, Arthur Mid- dleton, of South Carolina, and Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia. Then there were John Witherspoon, of Princeton College, a disciple of Christ and the Chris- tian doctrine of civil liberty ; John Penn, the sturdy patriot of North Carolina ; Lyman Hall, of Georgia ; Chase, Paca, and Stone, of Maryland ; Bartlett and Whipple, of New Hampshire ; Floyd and Living- LIBERTY AtfD LABOR 319 i ston, of New York ; Hopkins and Ellery, of Rhode Island, and the young and ardent Charles Carroll, of Carrollton. " Nor must we omit to mention two of this dis- tinguished body of patriots Dickinson, the eloquent 1 Pennsylvania Farmer,' and his colleague, Robert Morris, ' the Financier of the Revolution/ whose energy, self-sacrifice, and devotion were as unbounded as his integrity and probity were unimpeachable. It is related that after he had already involved himself to the extent of $1 ,500,000 in behalf of the Govern- ment, he said to a Quaker friend : * I want money for the use of the army.' " ' What security can thee give ?' " ' My word and my honor,' replied Morris. " ' Robert, thou shalt have it,' was the prompt reply. " Equally as useful and perhaps as influential as most of the members was the efficient Secretary of the Continental Congress, Charles Thompson, who for fifteen years was the faithful recorder of all its pro- ceedings, and who both witnessed and directed the signing of the Declaration. To him we are indebted, perhaps, more than to any other, for the enrollment and preservation of the historic parchment itself. " These were the men and men like them, who founded our Government, It has always seemed to me most fortunate that they were a truly represen- tative body, not only as to the States and sections of the country, but in the character of their callings 320 LIBERTY AND LABOR and pursuits in life. The country was new and but little developed, yet these men were familiar with and represented in themselves every condition of American life and society. Many of them were men of great experience in public affairs, ' the architects of their own fortunes/ who generally had risen despite great odds, and were in no sense adventurers or hot-headed revolutionists. " They built, not for themselves alone, but for pos- terity. Their plans stretched far out into the future, compassing the ages and embracing mankind. "Not alone for the present were their sacrifices and struggles, but for all time thereafter. Not for American colonists only, but for the whole human race, wherever men and women are struggling for higher, freer, and better conditions. It was as the yearning of the soul for emancipation. It was the cry of humanity for freedom freedom to think, speak, and act within the limitations of just and proper laws, which should be of their own making. If it should prove ineffectual, all was lost, and tyr- anny and oppression would be perpetual. It was the mighty struggle of the ages for the freedom of man, for the equal opportunity of all mankind. It involved those ' inalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ;' and it was no fault of its author that the shackles of slavery were left upon any human being in the Republic. What it fell short of he fully comprehended, and he wrote as he designed, intending that the Declaration should be LIBERTY AND LABOR 321 forever the protest of a Nation against every form of tyranny, oppression, and bondage known to men. " Liberty and conscience triumphed, and because of that triumph we have enjoyed for now more than a century the freest and best government in the world. The liberty which was secured by so great a sacrifice was not the liberty of lawlessness, not the liberty of licentiousness, but liberty for law, and law always for liberty, and both for all the people. It was not liberty for a class merely, but liberty and political equality for all the people ; notTa struggle for landed proprietors, for men of wealth and gentle birth, but liberty for the masses, the poor as well as the rich, the low as well as the high. It was not a victory easily won indeed, the wonder is that it was won at all. It was a contest waged by weak and struggling colonies, beset by enemies at home, as well as opposed by the most powerful government in the world, * the proud mistress of the seas/ their old Mother Country, strongly intrenched in power, and with the wealth of centuries at command. "It took seven years of war to make the Declara- tion of Independence respected as more than the idle words of a few restless leaders. Yet that great proclamation of freedom fell short of what Jefferson intended that it should contain. It is an interesting fact that the author of the Declaration of Indepen- dence and some of those associated with him deeply deplored the slave trade which was then actively en- gaged in by several of the Colonies. It is a fact 20 322 LIBERTY AND LABOR worth cherishing that iii the original draft by Jeffer- son he charged the king with willful participation in the slave trade. Here is the passage which was omitted, and it is certainly one of the most striking of the wonderful document : " ' He [King George] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open the market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us and purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them by murdering the people on which he also obtruded them ; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.' " This, alas, was left out of the otherwise perfect Declaration of Independence. What a world of trouble and sorrow it would have saved to posterity had it remained I What a blot it would have spared LIBERTY AND LABOR 323 the fair fame of this Republic, and what thousands of precious lives would have been saved if that great truth had become a part of the Charter of our Lib- erties, and its spirit have been ingrafted upon the Constitution in 1787 ! It is doubtful whether the Declaration could have been adopted if it had not been eliminated. Some of the Colonies would doubtless have withheld their assent, because some of them, or some of the people dwelling therein, were engaged themselves in the unholy traffic. It was the best and all that could be done at the time ; more was not required then, and need not be deeply de- plored now. Jefferson reluctantly yielded the point, but the passage remains as a permanent record not only to his broad philanthropy and exalted patriot- ism, but to his marvelous sagacity and foresight as one of the ablest and noblest of American statesmen. We can but reflect that what was in the hearts of Jefferson and many of his associates more than one hundred and nineteen years ago continued to stir the hearts of mankind, and that men could not slumber until slavery was totally extinguished. It took nearly a hundred years of national agitation and finally a war which cost the country hundreds of thousands of brave men and millions of the public treasury to put into the Constitution of the country what Jefferson wanted to put from the first into the Declaration of Independence. " It is interesting to note what seemed the almost insuperable obstacles to the final victory which 324 LIBERTY AND LABOR inaugurated free government on this continent. In the limitations of an address like this it is impossible to give them even a casual review. There was one great menace, however, that seems to have received little attention at the time which impresses me deeply, and may possess some interest to you, since it bringa into prominence the noble character of Washington and his agency in securing the blessings we no\v enjoy. It was after hostilities had ceased, although no public proclamation of peace had yet been made Washington had been urged to accept a kingship,, but had sternly rebuked every suggestion of dictator- ship on his part. The army was at Newburgh with- out pay, almost without food, and suffering in rags. Washington best describes its condition in a letter to the Secretary of War, from which I read : " ' Under present circumstances, when I see a number of men goaded by a thousand stings of re- flection on the past and anticipations of the future, about to be turned on the world, forced by penury and by what they call the ingratitude of the public, involved in debt, without one farthing to carry them home, after spending the flower of their days and many of their patrimonies in establishing the free- dom of their country and suffering everything this side of death I repeat that when I consider these irritating circumstances, without one thing to soothe their feelings or dispel their prospects, I cannot avoid apprehending that a train of evils will follow of a very serious and distressing nature. You may LIBERTY AND LABOR 325 rely upon it, the patriotism and long suffering of this Army is well-nigh exhausted, and there never was so great a spirit of discontent as at present/ " He stood between the Army and Congress, sym- pathizing deeply with his brave comrades in their deplorable condition, and yet in their presence, and in all his relations with them, upholding Congress and finding good excuses for its failure to provide for the Continental Army. The greatest discontent was prevalent, and a manifesto was issued and cir- culated among the officers and men which was well calculated to move them to acts of disorder and vio- lence. This was its strong language : " * Faith has its limits as well as its temper, and there are points beyond which neither can be stretched without sinking into cowardice or plunging into credulity. If this be your treatment while the swords you wear are necessary to the protection of your country, what have you to expect from peace, when your voice shall sink and your strength dissi- pate by division, when those very swords, the instru- ments and companions of your glory, shall be taken from your sides and no remaining mark of your military distinction is left but your infirmities and scars? Can you consent to retire from the field and grow old in poverty, wretchedness, and contempt? Can you consent to wade through the vile mire of despondency and owe the remnant of that life to charity which has hitherto been spent in honor? If you can, go, and carry with you the jest of Tories, 326 LIBERTY AND LABOR the scorn of Whigs, and, what is worse, the pity of the world. Go, starve, and be forgotten/ " ' Suspect the man/ it continued, referring directly to Washington, ' who would advise to more modera- tion and longer forbearance. Tell Congress that with it rests the responsibility of the future ; that if peace returns nothing but death shall separate you from your arms, and that if the war continues you will retire to some unsettled country to smile in turn and mock when their fear cometh.' " This was the situation that confronted Washing- ton. These words of discontent and mutinous im- port were easily caught up by many of the brave but suffering men, the heroic men whom he had borne on his great heart for seven long years. He declared this to be the darkest day of his life ; no defeat in all the years of the Revolution had borne so terrible an aspect. He beheld the half-naked, starving Army about to be led into mutiny, and per- haps, all the horrors of a bloody and desperate civil war, whose chief incentives would be rapine and plunder. What was he to do in this great emer- gency ? " A meeting was called without his knowledge or consent to take action. He appreciated its gravity ; he realized the meeting was fraught with the direct consequences to the Army and the country. It might destroy all that had been accomplished in the long struggle. He quickly determined his course. He issued a peremptory order postponing it for four SENATOR E. O. WOLCOTT. HON. JOHN WANAMAKEB. LIBERTY AND LABOR 329 days, and prepared an address that for force of utter- ance, lofty patriotism, and unselfish devotion to the cause for which they had jointly fought has to me scarcely an equal in the literature of the Revolu- tion. He attended the meeting; it was held on March 15th, 1783. It was the trying moment of his life, as well as a crucial test in the fate of the new and unsettled Government of the Republic. He had for those brave men, as he looked upon them assembled in the Temple, only love, gratitude, and sympathy. He unrolled his manuscript forgetting for the moment his spectacles, which had become in- dispensable to him but, pausing, he took them from his pocket, and before adjusting them remarked, in words full of emotion : " * These eyes, my friends, have grown dim and these locks white in the service, yet I never doubted the justice of my country/ " Referring to the manifesto, he said : " ' My God, what can this writer have in view in recommending such measures ? Can he be a friend of the country and the army ? No ! He is plot- ting the ruin of both. Let me conjure you in the name of our common country, as you value your own sacred honor, as you respect the rights of humanity, as you regard the military or national character of America, to express your utmost horror and detesta- tion of the man who wishes, under any specious pretense, to overturn the liberties of our country, and who wickedly attempts to open the flood-gates 330 LIBERTY AND LABOR of civil discord and deluge our rising empire in blood/ "After urging them to exhibit the same unselfish patriotism, the same devotion to duty that had always characterized them, and await with patience justice from the country they had served so faithfully, he said: " ' By thus determining and acting you will pursue the plain and direct road to the attainment of your wishes ; you will defeat the insidious designs of our enemies, who are compelled to resort from open force to secret artifice, and you will give one more distin- guishing proof of unexampled patriotism and patient virtue rising superior to the most complicated suffer- ings, and you will, by the dignity of your conduct, afford occasion for posterity to say, when speaking of the glorious example you have exhibited to man- kind : " Had this day been wanting, the world had never seen the last stage of perfection to which human virtue is capable of attaining." " Such an appeal from such a man could not be unavailing. The effect was instant; his inspired words were magical. His address finished, he walked out of the Temple alone, leaving his words of wisdom with them for such unrestrained consideration and action as they might see fit to take. The officers at once adopted resolutions of thanks, reciprocating the affectionate expressions of their Commander-in- Chief and indignantly repudiating the wicked mani- festo. Civil war was at that moment averted, and LIBERTY AXD LABOR 331 did not again so seriously confront the country for nearly eighty years. " This, I repeat, is a day of patriotic memories, and, perhaps, another allusion to the War for Inde- pendence may prove of some interest to you. On April 18th, 1783, a little more than a month after the scene just described, Washington issued his order announcing that hostilities had ceased. Let me read it to you : " ' HEADQUARTERS, NEWBURGH, April 18th, 1793. "'The Commander-in-Chief orders the cessation of hostilities between the United States of America and the King of Great Britain to be publicly read to-morrow at twelve o'clock, at the New Building, and the proclamation, which will be communicated herewith, to be read to-morrow evening at the head of every regiment and corps of the army. After which the chaplains with the several brigades will render thanks to Almighty God for all His mercies, particularly for His overruling the wrath of man to His own glory, and causing the rage of war to cease among the nations.' " We can well pause, even at this distant day, and offer our thanksgiving to that same power for His mercies to us, and for the singular manner in which He has preserved this Government from then until now against the * wrath of man to His own glory * and our most glorious advancement. " Following this order there was a great demon- stration of joy among the soldiers, and even the gal- 332 LIBERTY AND LABOR lant officers, who but a few weeks before had been filled with such -great discontent, now alike joined in singing with excited and jubilant air that grand old anthem, ' Independence/ then so popular, but long since forgotten and lost : .'"The States, O Lord, with song and praise, Shall in Thy strength rejoice ; And, blest with Thy salvation, raise To heaven their cheerful voice, And all the continent shall ring, Down with this earthly king ; No king but God.' "Interesting as these incidents may be to all who would, by a correct understanding of the past, wisely improve the future, we can review them no further. The past is secure ; the present and the future are our fields of opportunity and duty. Those who have gone before did well their part. Shall we be less brave and patriotic in the performance of our duty ? " What a mighty nation has been erected upon the immortal principles of the great Declaration, the signing of which we celebrate to-day I We have increased from thirteen to forty-four States; from 3,000,000 to nearly 70,000,000 people. We have arisen from slavery to freedom ; from what some men believed a mere confederacy of States, to be dissolved at pleasure, to a mighty, eternal Union of indivisible, indestructible States; from an agricul- tural community to the foremost Nation of the world in all the arts and sciences, in manufactures, in agri- LIBERTY AXD LABOR 333 culture, and in mining. Liberty, labor, and love have accomplished it all. Labor has been dignified and has vindicated the truth that the best citizen of any community is its most useful citizen. All men have equal rights guaranteed by our Constitution and laws, and that equality must be forever pre- served and strengthened and everywhere recognized. We are all Americans, we are all sovereigns, equal in the ballot, and that citizen is the best who does his best ; who follows the light as God gives him to see the light; who concedes to all the races of man- kind what he claims for himself; who rigidly respects the rights of others ; who is ever willing and ready to assist others ; who has the best heart, the best character, the greatest charity and sympa- thy, and who withholds from none of his fellow-men the respect, privileges, and protection he claims for himself. This is the citizenship that is the need of every age and to which we must educate ourselves and those who are to come after us. This is the citizenship that is the hope of the Republic, its security and permanency, which is the hope of man- kind, our own best hope; a citizenship that is faith- ful to home and family, devotedly loyal to country, that encourages the truest and broadest national spirit, the most thorough and genuine Americanism, that is ever moving onward and upward toward the highest ideals of modern civilization ; a citizenship that respects law and constituted authority, that loyally upholds, guards, and supports the Govern- 334 LIBEETY AND LABOR ment of which it is a part, in whose administration it has a voice, and that rests upon the free choice and consent of a majority of the people. These were the characteristics which possessed the souls of the men who landed in the ' Mayflower, 7 who resisted British oppression, who promulgated the immortal Declaration of Independence. These are the elements of character which gave us a Patrick Henry, a Franklin, a Washington, a Jefferson, an Adams, a Jackson, a Grant, and which produced a Lincoln, whose name has enriched history, and whose great Emancipation Proclamation has blessed mankind and glorified God. " It was this character of citizenship, and the aim to secure it, that animated the men who fought all the battles of the Republic from the Revolution to the great Civil War ; that struck slavery from the Constitution of the United States, that obliterated caste and bondage and made freedom universal in the Republic. The greatest battle which the Nation has fought has been to secure to labor the right to do with its skill, energy, and industry what it chooses, through lawful pursuits and by peaceable means, ever obedient to law and order, and respectful of the rights of all ; that has given labor the unquestioned right to use what it earns in its own way in the elevation of home and family ; that has taught labor to give conscience its full sway, and that has inspired labor to improve wisely every oppor- tunity which makes possible the realization of the LIBERTY AND LABOR 335 highest hopes and best aspirations of the human race. " Peace, order, and good will among the people, with patriotism in their hearts ; truth, honor, and justice in the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of the Government, municipal, State, and National ; all yielding respect and obedience to law, all equal before the law, and all alike amenable to law such are the conditions that will make our Government too strong ever to be broken by internal dissensions and too powerful ever to be overturned by any enemy from without. Then will the Govern- ment of the people, under the smiles of heaven, bless, prosper, and exalt the people who sustain and support it ! " In America no one is born to power ; none assured of station or command except by his own worth or usefulness. But to any post of honor all who choose may aspire, and history has proved that the humblest in youth are frequently the most hon- ored and powerful in the maturity of strength and age. It has long been demonstrated that the philos- ophy of Jefferson is true, and that this, the land of the free and self-governed, is the strongest as well as the best Government in the world. We accept no governmental standards but our own ; we will have no flag but the glorious old Stars and Stripes. " Workingmen of Chicago, let me abjure you to be faithful to the acts, traditions, and teachings of the fathers. Make their standard of patriotism and 336 LIBERTY AND LABOR duty your own. Be faithful to their glorious exam- ple. Whatever the difficulties of the present, or problems of the future, meet them in the same spirit of unflinching loyalty to country, the same devotion and love for home and family, the same acknowledg- ment of dependence upon God that has always char- acterized those grand men. Therein rests your great- est prosperity and happiness and the surest attainment of your best and dearest ambitions. Have confidence in the strength of our free institutions and faith in the justice of your fellow-citizens, for as Lincoln often said * there is no other hope in the world equal to it/ " In conclusion, let me offer the advice and ex- hortation of one who spoke on an occasion somewhat similar to this in the Centennial year 1876 in the city of Boston, the venerable Robert C. Winthrop, of Massachusetts, in his masterly Fourth of July oration and one of his last great public addresses. He had lived through nearly the whole period of our National existence and had been an active partici- pant in public affairs and a close student of our his- tory and people for many years. With this training and all the wisdom of experience and age, he pro- foundly observed: " * If I could hope without presumption that any humble counsels of mine on this hallowed anniver- sary would be remembered beyond the hour of their utterance and reach the ears of my countrymen in future days, I could not omit certainly to reiterate LIBERTY AND LABOK 337 the solemn obligations which rest on every citizen of this Republic to cherish and enforce the great principles of our Colonial and Revolutionary fathers the principles of liberty and law, one and insepar- able the principles of the Constitution and the Union. I could not omit to urge every man to re- member that self-government politically can only be successful if it be accompanied by self-government personally ; that there must be government some- where ; and that if the people are indeed to be ereigus they must exercise their sovereignty over themselves individually as well as over themselves in the aggregate regulating their own lives, re ing their own temptations, subdning their own pas- sions and voluntarily imposing upon themselves some measure of that restraint and discipline which, under other systems, is supplied from the armories of arbitary power the discipline of virtue, in the place of the discipline of slavery. I could not omit to caution them against the corrupting influences of intemperance, extravagance, and luxury ; I could not omit to call upon them to foster and further the cause of universal education ; to give a liberal sup- port to our schools and colleges; to promote the advancement of science and art in all their multi- plied divisions and relations, and to encourage and -.in all those noble institutions of charitv which in our own land, above all others, have given the crowning grace and glory to modern civilization.' " It would to me be an honor beyond any other to 338 LIBEETY AND LABOE have been the author of these sublime sentiments. I can and do adopt them, and beg you to heed, cherish, and teach them, as a rule of action to your- selves and to your children. American citizenship thus molded will perpetuate freedom, exalt the free- man, and distinguish the Republic beyond its past glorious achievements." CHAPTER XVI. MRS. McKIXLEY AT HOME. The great Protectionist's Wife Strong despite physical weakness- Shares all her husband's hurdens "Ever happy when sur- rounded by friends, children, and roses." [SKETCH BY Misa H. D. HALLMARK.] " T AM very glad to meet you," she said, as I neared her chair. -*" A tone is the index which gives you the page where a character is written. The moment the sen- tence was finished I knew Mrs. William McKinley belonged to the sincerely gracious type of women. It only needed her face and outstretched hand to verify the classification. Governor McKinley had brought me in to meet his wife through a group of politicians and friends who were sitting on the terrace and wide veranda at his house at Canton, O. As we walked through the shadowy, spacious hall toward the sitting-room the laughter and hum of feminine voices reached me. " I will not disturb Mrs. McKinley if she is en- tertaining callers, Governor," I said. 309 340 MRS. McKINLEY AT HOME "Then I very much, fear you would never see her," he answered. " It is the penalty of her geniality that she gladly pays. She is ever happy when surrounded by friends, children, and roses." And in that atmosphere I found her. She had visitors of the gentler sex from California and Ver- mont friends whom she had made in Congressional days. Roses were everywhere. One seemed turned loose in a conservatory. Two tiny chairs waited occupancy. The Governor turned to pick up a chubby-faced, yellow-ringleted three-year-old who came with hands full of flowers and lips ready to be kissed by " Auntie McKinley." " That is my name to every acquaintance under ten years of age," said Mrs. McKinley, " It used to be my boast that I knew every child in Canton. I fear the town grows beyond me now ; but reciprocity is great, and the children seem drawn to me because they know I love them so." HER LOVE OF CHILDREN. If Mrs. McKinley were asked " What are your preferences?" the first answer would be " Children." Twenty-three years ago she lost the two little ones that came to bless the sunny house at Canton. The first was born on Christmas Day and the second on April 1st. Since the music of the two tiny voices died away from her ears forever Mrs. McKinley has found that MRS. McKIXLEY AT HOME 341 her heart throbs quicker at the prattle of a child than aught else, and that her love is wide enough to cover all small lives, whether they be the offspring of poet or peasant, king or beggar. By the side of her great reception chair stand two little rockers. One belonged to their first born and the other was the infant throne of Mrs. McKinley herself when she was " Baby Saxton," and all Can- ton loved her. For while the branches of Mrs. McKinley 's life have spread far and wide, giving shade, shelter, fra- grance, and sweetness to many other lives, the roots are firmly established in that thriving little Western town. Twenty-six years ago Ida Saxton was Canton's belle and heiress. Her father was a business man rich beyond the order for those times. Houses, lands, and banks were his. Of sturdy old Presbyterian stock, he brought up his children after the way they should go, studying the Westminster Confession of Faith, and commit- ting the Shorter Catechism to memory. He was a man of influence in his county, and all homage was given to the pretty young daughter who came home after graduating at Media, Pa., and made her bow to the social circles of Canton. Her father, however, had his own ideas about girls, .and it was not all to be " bangs and beaux " with his daughter. " Girls should learn to do something that will bring them in money if fortune should be fickle," he 342 MES. McKINLEY AT HOME argued. And the pretty daughter was put into his own bank at Canton for a year to prove that Media had taught her something besides "a little Latin." "And the prospect looked quite dreary to me/' said Mrs. McKinley, in talking it over, " for all the other girls hud brothers to take them out, and my one was only a wee lad. But," she added, with a twinkle in her great gray eyes, " every man in town promised to be a brother to me, and, oh ! I did have such a good time." " And the Governor ? Was he a childhood's sweetheart, as I have heard?" I asked. " Not at all. He ran away to the army when he was sixteen, and served along with President Hayes. That was the strong bond between them. After that he began his law practice in Canton, and why then the other brothers dropped off one by one. Every- one approved of the match, my father most of all - and so we were married." Where Mrs. McKinley lives now the Governor brought her home a bride. For twenty-five years the house on North Market Street has remained un- altered, and the Governor and his wife dearly love every picture on its walls and every rose that climbs over the terrace. The First Presbyterian Church, a fine piece of tone architecture, was dedicated by the Saxton-Mc- Kinley wedding. The builders hurried the prepa- rations to completion that this wedding might be the very first event inside its walls. MRS. McKIXLEY AT HOME 343 All the Saxton's are yet ardent members and sup- porters of it, but Mrs. McKinley usually goes with her husband to the Methodist Church, of which he is an enthusiastic supporter. As Ida Saxton was Canton's belle a quarter of a century ago, so Mrs. William McKinley is the most popular woman there to-day. No honors of State or nation's capital have spoiled her. She inherited sterner stuff than that. She is just as gracious to some old beaux whose lives have come to nothing as she is to an illustrious executive. She has a keen interest in people. They are more to her than position. It is the individual, not the class, for which she cares. As the Governor said, it would be hard to see Mrs. McKinley when she didn't have callers. The house is always open. The neighborly spirit which rules in smaller towns exists in Canton to a great degree, but the neighborliness to the McKinleys comes from all points of the Union. During the day I spent with them there were no fewer than fifty friendly formal callers, and yet the day was not a gala one. The favorite house-corner of the Governor's wife is the great triple bow window of the long western sitting-room. Here she sits for hours, talking to friends, playing with children, or watching the passers-by on wheels, foot, and carriage ; for North Market Street is a fashionable thoroughfare and the town authorities 344 MRS. McKINLEY AT HOME wish, to shortly change the name to the more signifi- cant and euphonious one of McKinley Avenue. I say she " sits " there, for misfortune laid a heavy hand on Mrs. McKinley twenty-three years ago, and the muscles of her limbs are too weak to allow her to walk. For twenty-three years, therefore, she has never stood upright or walked without assistance. By her side always rests a strong mahogany cane with a great gold top, and a friend's arm serves for the other support. That is the only sign of invaldism. Women with far slighter physical troubles have worn weaker faces. Mrs. McKinley is a tall, well-rounded, strong- faced, clear-eyed woman, who needs must point to the staff and say, as she does, smilingly to every stranger " You see I'm not strong," before there comes a sj^picion that she cannot walk and ride and wheel ana do aught that strong women do. For she looks so vital. She is about medium height, with a full, straight figure. The face has strong cheek bones, a wide brow, not very high, from which her short, soft, gray hair divides in broad parting and waves back to the collar. This coiffure is not one of Mrs. McKinley's choos- ing, but her luxuriant hair had to be cut, as she did not feel quite strong enough to bear the hairpins and braids through the unflagging duties as wife of a public man. HON. LYMAN J. GAGE. HON. JOHN D. LONG. MRS. McKINLEY AT HOME 347 However, it is exceedingly becoming to her. Her brow, hair, and eyes reminded me singularly of those of Elizabeth Stuart Phe'ps. Mrs. McKinley's eyes are bar telling point. Had the mouth been weak the eyes would have redeemed it. But its strength says to the eyes, *' We are one in purpose." They are magnetic eyes. In them one sees the discipline of Buffering, the heritage of common sense, tlu ^raciousness of a kindly woman, the tenderness of a wife who loves wisely and well. But behind even that one who watches sees the steel badge of courage; the squareness- of judgment which looks a world straight into the fatje ; and some- where, away down in a spot no bigger than the small end of a wine funnel, the determination to be bigger than anything than can happen to her. With such a woman fate hag no victory, circum- stance no stii;g, and chance would Lave made her an invalid ; herself defeated it. THE GOVERNOR'S Her physical weakness is no skdeton in a closet. She speaks of it to all acquaintances never in a desire to use the first person sir.g-ilar, but ?is an ex- planation that she doesn't do more as a hostess, although every one knows th*it she accomplishes more than many a healthy, selfish woman. 348 MES. McKINLEY AT HOME She was speaking of it in the reception room dur- ing the afternoon, saying to an enthusiastic biker that wheels were a subject where she didn't have to fight for the merits of her chosen one, for bicycling was quite beyond her forever, "As I can't even walk," she added. A young girl quickly sighed. Mrs. McKinley turned to her with that wonderful tenderness on her face that comes to a girl's mouth and eyes when her lover is mentioned, and said: " But, my child, I have the great love of a noble man." And who could sigh after that ? The devotion of Governor McKinley to his wife is party history. Were it private talk only it would be indelicate to mention it, but everyone who has ever come in friendly contact with this couple know of it. He is too keen a man not to know that the strong face of his wife shows a woman of sound judgment, of wide-mindedness, of a good insight into men and affairs and the causes that condition both, for him not to make her his confidante and helpmate. That cool-headed judiciousness in judging the world, which was transmitted into her veins by her clear-minded father, comes not amiss in the states- man's wife. The person worth observing is observed by Mrs. McKinley. The advantages she has been given as wife of a public man and the advantages fate gave her of MRS. McKINLEY AT HOME 349 remaining quiet and not wasting her vitality in flit- ting to and fro, have developed that inborn trait to a wonderful degree to an alarming degree, I should say, to the person who wished to gain by deceiving her. HER WIXNIXG PERSONALITY. But this knowledge of the world does not tend in the smallest to harden the face. It gives firmness to sweetness, purpose to tenderness, power behind at- traction. Between the level, black eyebrows that divide the two color lines of gray eyes and gray hair, there is not a wrinkle or frown. Nothing but disposition has done this thing. She is temperamentally inclined not to worry, and the sign is there on the smooth, white forehead. The absence of any line is a special conundrum to those whose grievances have been slighter, perhaps, but whose command over self has been less. I asked an old friend of Mrs. McKinley's if the latter's temper was always as equable as that day. It had been severely tried. The day was hot, callers had been constant since eleven in the morning, and it was then five, a good dozen of visitors from out of town had remained to luncheon, among whom were Mark Hanna, ex-Sec- retary Proctor, from Vermont ; Judge and Mrs, Speers, from California ; and several other equally talked-of personages, at which table Mrs. McKinley had presided. 350 MRS. McKINLEY AT HOME ** Yes," said the friend, " T. ? ve never seen her pet- tish in my life. That she sometimes gets exceed- ingly weary goes without saying, l>ut she seemed to have schooled herself out of that common heritage of woman the desire to be cross and unreasonable when tired." "Why, even when I get a cold in my head," said the wife of an army officer, " I get simply snappish, just as all other women do, and my husband says warningly, * Remember Mrs. McKinley, dear/ and I at once am ashamed of myself." HER FAVORITE NOOK. I spoke of the favorite place in the McKinley home. It is around a great window that looks on a neighbor's house and the side terrace, while the two French windows in front open on the wide veranda which leads down to a spacious terrace. Mrs. McKinley's chair is drawn near the bow window. The nearby table is a feature of the room. It is the one exhibited at the World's Fair in the Ohio Building, made of handsome Ohio woods, and afterward presented to the Governor and his wife. It is exceedingly large and beautifully carved, with great claw feet. On it lie the periodicals of the day, the mounted and framed photograph of the Governor's horse, " Midnight," cabinets of beautiful women and sandwiched everywhere, bowls and vases of glorious roses. I should not say the roses wore "sandwiched/' MRS. McKINLEY AT HOME 351 for all else were pushed around to make room for the splendid June beauties that friends keep this corner abundantly supplied with. One great vase of them was sent by the fair grad- uates to whom the Governor had presented diplomas the night before. And one massive jar of the most superb red tmes were just unpacked, sent by a Phila- delphia florist, asking that they might have the honor of being named " the Mrs. McKiuley," as they were a new variety. This room is furnished in simple but artistic taste. This is more of a living room than a sitting room. The pictures are mostly of family and friends. Mr. and Mrs. McKiuley, Sr., are there, and Mr. and Mrs. Saxton. President and Mrs. Hayes in a double frame are mounted on an easel, and Mrs. McKinley pointed out to me the small daguerreotypes of the wee one that died, and of her husband and herself when they began lite in an unpretentious way, but even then with " dreams of future greatness in the eye." Autograph pictures of great artists in the literary and musical world dot the cosily papered walls, and the fine piano also rose-covered shows the mu- sical taste of the hostess. Behind this sitting-room is Mrs, McKinley's sleep- ing apartment. It is furnished daintily in old chip- pendale and brass couch with hangings of French Cretonne. The toilet table is loaded with lovely silver articles and long wiiido\vs open out on more green grass. 352 MES. McKINLEY AT HOME In truth, there is no outlook in summer from the McKinley home where the eye doesn't meet verdure and flowers. As to the dining-room, one glance at the long dining- table verifies what Fred, the colored major- domo of the Governor, would tell you, that " the family is two, but the table is set for twelve." This shows the hospitality of the home. If Mrs. McKinley becomes mistress of the White House, I don't believe any exigencies in the social life will be too much for her, accustomed, as she is, to constant entertaining. And her entertaining, mind you, is not confined to their Canton home. Mrs. McKinley goes everywhere the Governor goes, and all over America she has boundlessly entertained and been entertained. Some one spoke of her possible White House duties. She shook her head and laughed. " I've tried that once," she said, "and have ever since said I never wanted any longer duration of it. I was Lady of the White House for two weeks dur- ing Mrs. Hayes's absence. " Mrs. Hayes and I had always been on most cordial terms, and I was as often at the White House as she at our hotel. So she persuaded me to stay there during a fortnight of unavoidable absence on her part during the season. And I repeat, the posi- tion is no slight tax." Mrs. McKinley is an excellent hostess. She was either born with although I don't believe anybody MRS. McKIXLEY AT HOME 353 is or she lias learned the gift of listening and of bringing the guests out. And you know if one proves that you are clever you are convinced of the cleverness of the one who does so. So people go away from the Governor's wife with a snug, comfortable conviction about the region of the heart that they have proved themselves most entertaining persons. Wonderful gift, isn't it? But no one would laugh more at the suggestion of such a trait on her part than Mrs. McKiriley. " But, my dear, I am really so interested," she would say. HER WOMAN'S RIGHTS. When I said good-by to her I almost told her how charming she was. I hope my eyes told it to her. In the secret recesses of my better sense I knew I had been lured into staying too long, and yet her parting graciousness was such that my sub-coating of conceit was gratified. That is another straw which shows her power of making friends. Going down the terrace, where the men portion of the callers sat on garden chairs, taking their ease while they talked on matters of quivering import- ance, I turned back to get a last glimpse of the favorite corner. The setting sun touched the rose petals into pris- matic colors and glinted on the yellow curls of a baby caller seated in one of the little chairs. 354' MRS. McKINLEY AT HOME Mrs. Melvinley sat in her large chair ; in her firm white hand she held a. great-hearted crimson rose ; on her shoulder was lightly laid the hand of the man of the hour ; back of her stood several powers in the affairs of the nation. And I knew that whatever the political creed of those men, they believe in woman's rights- the right of their chivalry and tenderness and loyalty and de- votion and homage to such a wide-minded, great- hearted, fine-sonled lady. Of such is the kingdom of woman. CHAPTER XVII. McKINLEY ON THE DAY OF HIS NOMINATION. His good nerve and thoughtful courtesies He was quiet through the storm and gave the good news with kisses to his wife and mother. JUNE 18th, 1896, was an ideal June day at Can- ton ; the air full of golden sunshine. The ex- pectation and strain of excitement of the people, who have a passionate admiration and affection for Major McKinley, were unmistakable, hut they waited with the supreme dignity of confidence. Major McKinley was awakened rather early from a sound sleep by the clicking of the telegraph in- struments in his office making an unusual clamor that penetrated the walls, but his eye glowed with energy, there was a fiery spark under his dark, shaggy brows, and the fine, strong lines of his mouth were accentuated. The day was not far advanced when a group of newspaper men gathered on the shady porch of the Major's residence, which seems to be in the midst of a vast park, adorned with pleasant homes, standing in glossy lawns and amidst lovely trees. 355 356 DAY OF NOMINATION There was keen competition between the Western Union and Postal Telegraph Companies and the Long Distance Telephone, transmitting the Con- vention news to the Major, and he was quietly seated in a rocking-chair, slowly swinging and chatting, and as the telegrams were handed him, he coolly scanned them, repeated their substance often the exact words in unconcerned tones explained them upon inquiry, and, after elucidation, passed them on to others. It was noticeable that he -frequently re- ceived confidential messages and, of course, did not share them with his visitors. The intervals were filled with conversation, in which the Major related anecdotes of the National Conventions, and of Mr. Elaine and the great Re- publicans of other days, and the newspaper veterans drew from him old recollections. He followed intently the story of the silver seces- sion, recognizing the parliamentary situation point by point, and concisely explaining the entanglement. His face was very serious and stern when listening to the account of the retirement of some of the silver States, and broke into a smile, winning as the glance of a boy, as the announcement was made of the alter- nates taking the places of the fugitives ; and there was an expression of pleasure from him when the Montana man stood up and stuck to the Convention, and spoke for his State in terse and ringing terms. There were many callers, and the Major was atten- tive to all, remembering the names of acquaintances, DAY OF XO.MIXATl' '^~ asking apt and incisive questions, and commending every sign of patience and the presence of a spirit of conciliation in the Convention. He forgot noth- ing that was courteous and appropriate, and was as hearty and thoughtful as if holding a reception of inconsiderable import. The enthusiasts of the early business hours of the eventful day were flitting about in the forms of de- lightful young ladies, wearing breezy and bright spring suits, and they had joyous faces and walked as if to dancing music. They were the people who had no doubts of the fortunes of the day. As the Major rocked on his porch, enjoying the freshness of the air that was balmy, though touched with fire, the carriages that clattered down the broad street filled with people, all contained persons who recognized the hero of the day, and he returned their salutes with his accustomed urbanity and manner, at once graceful and stately. Ladies of the family came up the walk from the street to the house, with serious faces, and as the Major rose to greet them he asked, " Is mother com- ing up to-day ?" And the answer was, " Yes, she will be here." An old friend near the Major appeared to be dis- turbed at the protracted discussions, as it seemed, of the silver and gold question, and the Major snid, " Why, Judge, you seem to be impatient. If you show so much anxiety I shall have to console you." The Major did not allow any word that was tinged 353 DAY OF NOMINATION with fault-finding relating to proceedings at St. Louis to pass without dissent, and remarked the Conven- tions were all, in many ways, alike ; and he acted up constantly to the spirit of his last words to Mark Hanna as that successful man was setting forth, conquering and to conquer, for St. Louis the Major's final word was : " Your duty now is one of conciliation." This has been the policy of McKinley throughout. About one o'clock a carriage drove up and three ladies descended, the Major hastening forward to greet them. The venerable woman, with Roman features, was the Major's mother, and with her were his sisters. About two o'clock there was lunch, Mrs. McKinley at the head of the table. She has, happily, improved in health, and her conversation sparkled with a sweet and pensive but pronounced personality. She has not been in favor of the Presi- dential business. Of course, she wants her husband to win now, but she would rather he had not been drawn into the stream of events that is bearing him on to higher destinies, for the tendency of the great office will be to absorb the Major's attention, so that she can hardly, however great his devotion, have all the time in his society she would fondly claim as her own. During lunch the telegrams continued to come, and one from an old friend was full of congratulations by anticipation, and called attention to two texts of Scripture. DAY OF NOMINATION 359 There was at once curiosity to read the passages, and Mrs. McKinley's Bible was brought. A gentle- man at the table said that, of course, Mr. McKinley's Bible could be known to him only by the cover, as he was too busy a man to get acquainted with the inside. Mrs. McKinley said, in a spirited way, " He does, indeed, know the inside of his Bible no man better, I assure you ; and I speak that which I do know." The texts that had been solemnly called to the Major's attention were the following : Jeremiah xx, 11 : " But the Lord is with me as a mighty terrible one ; therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail ; they shall be greatly ashamed, for they shall not prosper ; their everlasting confusion shall never be forgotten." Psalms xlvii, 6 : " Sing praises to God, sing praises ; sing praises unto our King, sing praises." These remarkable passages were read by a lady and their fitness to the occasion commented upon by the guests. The Major was silent, but he no doubt thought his persecutors were stumbling and would not prevail and should be greatly ashamed. It had been the prevalent presumption up to this time that there would be a recess after the platform was adopted, and that the nominating speeches spun out so as to throw the nomination into the night. But lunch had hardly been concluded when the St. Louis news, through the long distance telephone and both wires simultaneously told that the fight was 360 DAY OF NOMINATION on to a finish that the rush of events had been has- tened, and the crisis was close at hand. McKinley's office, to which he now repaired, is adorned with portraits of Lincoln and Grant and Mrs. McKinley, a fine scene of a battery in a hot engagement, and some personal friends. When it was announced that the nominating speeches were about to be made, the Major took his seat in a heavy arm-chair, beside his working desk, with a pad of paper in his left hand and a pencil in his right. Behind him was the telephone apparatus with an expert, connected direct with the Convention Hall. Thus there were three avenues of lightning line service between the Major's office and the Con- vention Hall the Postal and Western Union, and the Long Distance Telephone. The Major's face was grave. There were deep fires in his eyes, and his intellectual pallor, always noticeable, now gave his features the stern grace of carved marble. It is a fancy founded on fact that Major McKinley looks like, Napoleon, but to-day he looked marvelously like Daniel Webster. The warm reception of Senator Lodge by the Convention elicited an expression of sympathy from the Major, who expressed his sense of the wonderful fact that, though so far from the Convention, we were yet so near, and knew absolutely as much of the proceedings, precisely as they occurred, as if we were bodily present. I mentioned to the Major that my experience warranted the observation that I knew DAY OF XOMJXATION 361 more of the Convention in the seat by his side than when in a reporter's seat in Convention Hall. Suddenly there came word almost at the same moment through the three wires, that Ohio had been called and that Foraker making his way to the platform and was received with tremendous cheering, also that the hall was flooded with sun- shine, welcoming the soldier-boy son of Ohio, about to nominate another soldier-boy and son of the mod- ern mother of Presidents. The two boy-soldiers were famous ex-Governors of their State. The word came in a moment that Foraker was about to speak. McKinley was asked whether For- aker's speech was probably prepared, and the Major said it was not, he supposed, written, but Foraker knew very well the main things he was about to say, and was a keen, brilliant man, who knew how to make the best of the opportunities on the spot. The occasion for the inquiry as to the preparation For- aker had made was that one of the correspondents present had seen several of the nominating speeches in type and gave interesting information as to their length and character. The young ladies in the parlor across the hall from the office had a look in which glee and distress were comically mingled, and the Major walked up to them, saying with gayety, " Are you young ladies getting anxious about this affair ?" They admitted that they were really nervous. The Major reassured them, and took his big chair, 362 DAY OF NOMINATION placing his silk hat on an adjacent table, and relaps- ing into meditation. For a minute his pale, fixed features showed he was thinking, perhaps as much of the far-off past as of the near and rising future, and no one disturbed his day dream. This was just as Foraker was waiting for the storm of applause that greeted him to subside, so as to be allowed to go on with his speech. It was at 3.21 o'clock, according to all the watches in the Major's room, when word came that at that moment Foraker pronounced the name of McKinley, and then came the tornado of applause, which lasted for nearly half an hour. There was a pause at our end of the wire, and the Major joined in exchange of recollections with the veterans about the contests in cheering that distinguished the Convention of 1880 at Chicago, between the supporters of Grant and those of Blaine the most celebrated of all the contests in cheering. The Major stepped to the telephone and listened to the roar of the Convention at St. Louis. He heard it distinctly, and, following his example, we could make out a vast tumult, struck through with shrill notes. It was like a storm at sea, with wild, fitful shrieks of wind. As time passed, and Foraker could not still the tempest he had raised, some one said he might not be able to regain the thread of his speech, and the Major remarked it was hard on a speaker to be held up in that way it was like stopping a race horse in GENERAL LEW WALLACE. EX-SECRETARY OF STATE DAY. DAY OF NOMINATION 365 full career. But the Major said Foraker would come out of such a scene in triumph, and referred with warm admiration to his " gem of a speech " at the late Republican State Convention. The monotony of waiting was broken by a telegram from an unknown source, giving McKinley assur- ance that he " would be nominated on the first ballot. " This raised a laugh, but the Major only smiled, and made a suggestion as to the happening of the unexpected and the marvels of disappoint- ment. " You may all, after all, find yourselves much mistaken at last," said the Major, gravely, as if in warning not to tempt Providence by being too sure. Telegrams poured in, and the Major read them and directed they should be given to those outside the house where were a dozen very old friends and twice that number of members of the press. The Major at this supreme hour directed the placing of chairs for new arrivals, and had greater self-com- mand than anybody else. He showed his training in war and peace and as he held up telegrams in one hand to read, there was not a flutter of the thin sheets to tell a tale of nervousness. The message came, " Foraker is trying to resume his speech," and at this there was a smile. In an- other minute the telephone expert repeated Foraker's words about McKinley when he resumed, "You seem to have heard of him before." "Ah," said the Major, "that is like him. He 366 DAY OF NOMINATION knows what he is doing, and is all right. The inter- ruption will not shake his speech." The Ohio men with the Governor laughed im- mensely at the stories by the triple wires of Mark Hanna and Bushnell and Grosvenor and Foraker hugging and fanning each other and yelling like maniacs. Surely mercy and peace have kissed each other, and the year of jubilee has come ! There was a laugh over Depew's humorous illus- tration of the famous saying, touching the silver secessionists, of the celebrated phrase, " erring sis- ters, depart in peace." There was some levity about the effort of Penn- sylvania to make a noise, over Quay's presentation equal to that which welcomed McKinley's name, but the face of the Major which was growing earnest as the moment approached for the call of the roll of States for the ballot gave no encouragement to per- sonal reflections. When it was mentioned that Gov- ernor Hastings had spoken, some one said to the tele~ phone expert : " Ask how long the Quay applause lasted." " No, no I" said the Major, " Do not ask that ques- tion," and it was riot asked. There were a few minutes in which it was known that the call of the roll for balloting was the immi- nent order of exercises, and the air in McKinley's office grew sultry and still. There was heat and silenca McKinley picked up his pad and pencil, and proposed to keep an account of the vote. He DAY OF NOMINATION 367 evidently then in fancy floated far away, and was in solitude, and hummed for a few moments the air of an old song. It was so soft and low that few heard it, and then it was no more and was like a dream within a dream something quaint, almost mystical, an echo of music, perhaps, of the long ago. It did not occur to me at the moment what it was, but it is interesting that it was the Scotch war song that Burns ennobled and immortalized in his Ban- nockburn, " Scots whom Bruce has often led." Moments passed, and then the Major whistled two or three bars two or three times, quietly, un- consciously. Suddenly the silence was abruptly broken by the announcement: Alabama, 18 for McKinley." Then figures came thick and fast, and challenges followed of the votes of several States. Two or three present did not know what that meant, and the Major, clearly and carefully, with perfect command of every point raised, stated the situation. " But why," the question was asked, " do they contested?" " It is necessary," the Major explained, " that gen- tlemen should go upon the record if they care to do so," and he added, " there ar<3 disputes between the delegates, and tlie chairmen of delegations who enounce the figures, and it can only be settled by polling tM vote of the State." 368 DAY OF NOMINATION The voice of the Major was not heard, a profound silence ensued, when the telephone gave forth, " the Alabama vote sustained." The Major smiled, and then, as the votes for him swelled into hundreds, he kept the count without a change of countenance not even when the Ohio man next to him said: " The Ohio vote, now to be thrown in two or three minutes, will nominate you with a margin of a dozen, and that will please Ohio." The recording angel, in the guise of a beautiful young lady in the hall, claimed that the Major's vote was more than it had been represented, and he quickly responded : " Be careful what you claim. We must have a fair count." One of the veterans asked, repeatedly : "Where is Idaho ?" and there were inquiries for other States, The Major explained that some of the States had gone out, and there might be cases not covered by alternates. " Possibly, Sam," said the Major to the telephonist, " Idaho went out," and so on to the last, the Major was clear-headed, composed, cool, and decided. Not a tremor in hand or voice, the figures his pencil traced were well formed, his voice low and even, but his pale, strong face seemed to grow in grandeur and to take on an august expression of conscious, lofty fortune, and fearful responsibility. With firm fingers the Major wrote on his tab the fateful ballots, and the mighty vote of Ohio, 46 strong, rolled in. The Major put that down, too, 430 DAY OF NOMINATION 301) and did not look up or seem to be aware of all it exactly and conclusively meant. The Ohio man next him threw down his pencil, saying : " There, that settles it, no more figures for me." The Major looked up with an air of curiosity, say- ing : " Why are you no longer interested ?" The reply was : " Because the thing is done ; let the boys cipher. The majority will be big enough. Major, I congratulate you. God bless you and give you all good gifts ; and now you have just a quarter of a minute, before you are mobbed, to greet your wife and mother." He quickly crossed the hall to the parlor, crowded with ladies, and, as his wife and mother were seated side by side, stooped low to kiss them and clasp their eager hands, the wife responding with a bright smile and a sweet exaltation in her eyes, as he told her that the vote of Ohio had given him the nomination, and the grand old mother, placing a trembling hand on her son's neck, and her eyes streaming with tears, brighter even than smiles, whispered to her illustrious boy some holy words for him alone. At this moment the bells rang, the whistles blew, the cannon thundered, and beautiful Canton went stark, gloriously mad. The city, under a strong pressure, had kept quiet. There was a determina- tion that there would be nothing done prematurely. Now the city blazed with bunting. There were 370 BAY OF NOMINATION whirring carriages, galloping horses, wheel men and women swift as the wind ! There seemed to have been an organization, including all the men, women, and children, to demonstrate instantly the moment the momentous signal was given. As I hastened to the telegraph office there was a vast multitude precipating themselves in a gigantic, ungovernable procession upon Governor McKinley house, and there, with wife and mother at the win- dow with him, he acknowledged his gratitude to his neighbors first of all, and to his countrymen for their personal kindness, and his voice had the fine tone of resolution and sincerity that all who know him know, and that they hear with joyful confidence that heaven has sent a man of such manliness to serve his country in her great office, and help her upward and forward to her incomparable destiny. CHAPTER XVIII. MAJOR MCKINLEY ACKNOWLEDGES AND ACCEPTS HIS NOMINATION. letter of Major McKinley, accepting his nomination for the Presidency by the National Republican Convention, was delivered by him to the press for publication on the evening of August 26. It read as follows : Canton, 0., August 26, 1896. Hon. John M. Thurston and others, members of the Notification Committee of the Republican National Convention : Gentlemen : In pursuance of the promise made to your committee when notified of my nomination as the Republican candidate for President, I beg to sub- mit this formal acceptance of that high honor and to consider in detail questions at issue in the pending campaign. Perhaps this might be considered unnecessary in view of my remarks on that occasion and those I have made to delegations that have visited me since the St. Lous Convention, but in view of the momen- tous importance of the proper settlement of the issues 371 372 McKINLEY'S ACCEPTANCE presented on our future prosperity and standing as a nation, and considering only the welfare and happi- ness of our people, I could not be content to ornit again calling attention to the questions which in my opinion vitally affect our strength and position among the governments of the world and our morality, in- tegrity and patriotism as citizens of that Republic which for a century past has been the best hope of the world and the inspiration of mankind. We must not now prove false to our own high standards in government nor unmindful of the noble example and wise precepts of the fathers, or of the confidence and trust which our conduct in the past has always inspired. For the first time since 1868, if ever before, there is presented to the American people this year a clear and direct issue as to our monetary system, of vast importance in its effects, and upon the right settle- ment of which rests largely the financial honor and prosperity of the country. It is proposed by one wing of the Democratic party and its allies, the People's and Silver parties, to in- augurate the free and unlimited coinage of silver by independent action on part of the United States at a ratio of sixteen ounces of silver to one ounce of gold. The mere declaration of this purpose is a menace to our financial and industrial interests and has already created universal alarm. It involves great peril to the credit and business of the country a peril so grave that conservative men everywhere are McKIXLEY'S ACCEPTANCE 373 breaking away from their old party associations and uniting with other patriotic citizens in emphatic pro- test against the platform of the Democratic National Convention as an assault upon the faith and honor of the Government and the welfare of the people. We have had few questions in the lifetime of the Republic more serious than the one which is thus presented. The character of the money which shall measure our values and exchanges, and settle our balances with one another and with the nations of the world, is of such primary importance and so far-reaching in its consequences as to call for the most painstaking investigation, and, in the end, a sober and unpreju- diced judgment at the polls. We must not be mis- led by phrases nor deluded by false theories. Free silver would not mean that silver dollars were to be freely had without cost or labor. It would mean the free use of the mints of the United States for the few' who are owners of silver bullion, but would make silver coin no freer to the many who are engaged in other enterprises. It would not make labor easier, the hours of labor shorter, or the pay better. It would not make Arming less laborious or more profitable. It would not start a factory or make a demand for an ad- ditional day's labor. It would create no new occu- pations. It would add nothing to the comfort of the masses, the capital of the people or the wealth of the nation. 374 McKINLEY'S ACCEPTANCE It seeks to introduce a new measure of value, but would add no value to the thing measured. It would not conserve values. On the contrary, it would derange all existing values. It would not re- store business confidence, but its direct effect would be to destroy the little which yet remains. The meaning of the coinage plank adopted at Chicago is that anyone may take a quantity of silver bullion now worth fifty-three cents to the mints of the United States, have it coined at the expense of the Government, and receive for it a silver dollar which shall be legal tender for the payment of all debts, public and private. The owner of the silver bullion would get the silver dollar. It would belong to him and to nobody else. Other people would get it only by their labor, the products of their land, or something of value. The bullion owner on the basis of present values would receive the silver dollar for fifty-three cents' worth of silver, and other people would be required to receive it as a full dollar in payment of debts. The Government would get nothing from the trans- action. It would bear the expense of coining the silver and the community would suffer loss by its use. We have coined since 1878 more than 400,000,000 silver dollars, which are maintained by the Govern- ment at parity with gold and are a full legal tender for the payment of all debts, public and private. McKINLEY'S ACCEPTANCE 378 How are the silver dollars now in use different from those which would be in use under free coinage ? They are to be of the same weight and fineness ; they are to bear the same stamp of the Government. Why would they not be of the same value ? I an- swer : The silver dollars now in use were coined on account of the Government, and not for private ac- count or gain, and the Government has solemnly agreed to keep them as good as the best dollars we have. The Government bought the silver bullion at its market value and coined it into silver dollars. Hav- ing exclusive control of the mintage, it only coins what it can hold at a parity with gold. The profit, representing the difference between the commercial value of the silver bullion and the face value of the silver dollar, goes to the Government for the benefit of the people. The Government bought the silver bullion con- tained in the silver dollar at very much less than its coinage value. It paid it out to its creditors, and put it in circulation among the people at its face value of one hundred cents, or a full dollar. It required the people to accept it as a legal ten- der, and is thus morally bound to maintain it at a parity with gold, which was then, as now, the recog- nized standard with us and the most enlightened nations of the world. The Government having issued and circulated the silver dollar must in honor protect the holder from 376 McKINLEY'S ACCEPTANCE loss. This obligation it has so far sacredly kept. Not only is there a moral obligation, but there is a legal obligation, expressed in public statute, to main- tain the parity. These dollars, in the particulars I have named, are not the same as the dollars which would be issued under free coinage. They would be the same in form, but different in value. The Government would have no part in the trans- action except to coin the silver bullion into dollars. It would share in no part of the profit. It would take upon itself no obligation. It would not put the dollars into circulation. It could only get them as any citizen would get them, by giving something for them. It would de- liver them to those who deposited the silver, and its connection with the transaction there end. Such are the silver dollars which would be issued under free coinage of silver at a ratio of 16 to 1. Who would then maintain the parity ? What would keep them at par with gold ? There would be no obligation resting upon the Government to do it, and if there were, it would be powerless to do it. The simple truth is we would be driven to a silver basis to silver monometallism. These dollars, therefore, would stand upon their real value. If the free and unlimited coinage of silver at a ratio of sixteen ounces of silver to one ounce of gold would, as some of its advocates assert, make fifty-three cents in silver worth one hundred McKINLEY'S ACCEPTANCE 377 cents, and the silver dollar equal to the gold dollar, then we would have no cheaper money than now, and it would be no easier to get. But that such would be the result is against reason and is contradicted by experience in all times and in all lands. It means the debasement of our currency to the amount of the difference between the com- mercial and coin value of the silver dollar, which is ever changing, and the effect would be to reduce pro- perty values, entail untold financial loss, destroy con^ fidence, impair the obligations of existing contracts, further impoverish the laborer and producers of the country, create a panic of unparalleled severity, and inflict upon trade and commerce a deadly blow. Against any such policy I am unalterably opposed. Bimetallism cannot be secured by independent action on our part. It cannot be obtained by opening our mints to the unlimited coinage of the silver of the world at a ratio of 16 ounces of silver to one ounce of gold when the commercial ratio is more than thirty ounces of silver to one ounce of gold. Mexico and China have tried the experiment. Mexico has free coinage of silver and gold at a ratio slightly in excess of sixteen and a half ounces of sil- ver to one ounce of gold, and while her mints are freely open to both metals at that ratio, not a single dollar in gold bullion is coined and circulated as money. Gold has been driven out of circulation in these countries and they are on a silver basis alone. S78 McKINLEY'S ACCEPTANCE Until international agreement is had, it is the plain duty of the United States to maintain the gold stand- ard. It is the recognized and sole standard of the great commercial nations of the world, with which we trade more largely than any other. Eighty-four per cent, of our foreign trade for the fiscal year 1895 was with gold standard countries and our trade with other countries was settled on a gold basis. Chiefly by means of legislation during and since 1878 there has been put in circulation more than $624,000,000 of silver or its representative. This has been done in the honest effort to give to silver, if possible, the same bullion and coinage value, and encourage the concurrent use of both gold and silver as money. Prior to that time there had been less than 9,000,000 of silver dollars coined in the entire history of the United States, a period of eighty-nine years. This legislation secures the largest use of silver consistent with financial safety and the pledge to maintain its party with gold. We have to-day more silver than gold. This has been accomplished at times with grave peril to the public credit. The so-called Sherman law sought to use all the silver product of the United States for money at its market value. From 1890 to 1893 the Government purchased 4,500,000 ounces a year. This was one- third of the product of the world and practically all of this country's product. McKINLEY'S ACCEPTANCE 379 It was believed by those who then and now favor free coinage that such use of silver would advance its bullion value to its coinage value, but this expectation was not realized. In a few months, notwithstanding the unprecedented market for the silver produced in the United States, the price of silver went down very rapidly, reaching a lower point than ever before. Then, upon the recommendation of President Cleve- land, both political parties united in the repeal of the purchasing clause of the Sherman law. We cannot with safety engage in further experiments in this direction. On the 22d of August, 1891, in a public address, I said : " If we could have an international ratio, which all the leading nations of the world would adopt, and the true relation be fixed between the two metals, and all agree upon the quantity of silver which should constitute a dollar, then silver would be as free and unlimited in its privileges of coinage as gold is to-day. But that we have not been able to secure, and with the free and unlimited coinage of silver adopted in the United States at the present ratio we would be still further removed from any international agree- ment. We may never be able to secure it if we enter upon the isolated coinage of silver. The double standard implies equality at a ratio, and that equality can only be established by the con- current law of nations. It was the concurrent law of nations that made the double standard; it will re- 380 McKINLEY'S ACCEPTANCE quire the concurrent law of nations to reinstate and sustain it. The Kepublican party has not been, and is not now, opposed to the use of silver money, as its record abundantly shows. It has done all that could be done for its increased use with safety and honor by the United States acting apart from other govern- ments. There are those who think that it has al- ready gone beyond the limit of financial prudence. Surely we can go no further, and we must not permit false lights to lure us across the danger line. We have much more silver in use than any country in the world, except India or China ; $500,000,000 more than Great Britain ; $150,000,000 more than France; $400,000,000 more than Germany; $325,- 000,000 less than India, and $125,000,000 less than China. The Kepublican party has declared in favor of an international agreement, and if elected President it will be my duty to employ all, proper means to pro- mote it. The free coinage of silver in this country would defer, if not defeat, international bimetallism, and until an international agreement can be had every interest requires us to maintain our present standard. Independent free coinage of silver at a ratio of six- teen ounces of silver to one ounce of gold would in- sure the speedy contraction of the volume of our cur- rency. It would drive at least five hundred millions of gold dollars, which we now have, permanently HON. WILLIAM P. FEYE. 8. P. DOLE, EX-PRESIDENT HAWAIIAN REPUBLIC. McKIXLEY'S ACCEPTANCE 383 from the trade of the country and greatly decrease our per capita circulation. It is not proposed by the Republican party to take from the circulating medium of the country any of the silver we now have. On the contrary, it is pro- posed to keep all of the silver money now in circula- tion on a parity with gold by maintaining the pledge of the Government that all of it shall be equal to gold. This has been the unbroken policy of the Repub- lican party since 1878. It has inaugurated no new policy. It will keep in circulation and as good as gold all of the silver and paper money which is now included in the currency of the country. It will maintain their parity. It will preserve their equality in the futute, as it has always done in the past. It will not consent to put this country on a silver basis, which would inevitably follow independent free coin- age at a ratio of sixteen to one. It will oppose the expulsion of gold from our circulation. If there is any one thing which should be free from speculation and fluctuation it is the money of a country. It ought never to be the subject of mere partisan contention. When we part with our labor, our products, or our property, we should receive in return money which is as stable and unchanging in value as the ingenuity of honest men can make it. Debasement of the cur- rency means destruction of values. No one suffers so much from cheap money as the 384 McKINLEY'S ACCEPTANCE farmers and laborers. They are the first to feel its bad effects, and the last to recover from them. This has been the uniform experience of all countries, and here, as elsewhere, the poor, and not the rich, are always the greatest sufferers from every attempt to debase our money. It would fall with alarming severity upon invest- ments already made ; upon insurance companies and their policy holders; upon savings banks and their depositors; upon building and loan associations and their members; upon the savings of thrift; upon pensioners and their families, and upon wage-earners and the purchasing power of their wages. The silver question is not the only issue affecting our money in the pending contest. Not content with urging the free coinage of silver, its strongest cham- pions demand that our paper money shall be issued directly by the Government of the United States. This is the Chicago Democratic declaration. The St. Louis People's declaration is that " our national money shall be issued by the General Government only, without the intervention of banks of issue, be full legal tender for the payment of all debts, public and private," and be distributed " direct to the people and through lawful disbursements of the Govern- ment.'* Thus, in addition to the free coinage of the world's silver, we are asked to enter upon an era of unlimited irredeemable paper currency. The question which was fought out from 1865 to 1879 is thus to be re- McKIXLEY'S ACCEPTANCE 385 opened, with all its uncertainties and cheap money experiments of every conceivable form foisted upon us. This indicates a most startling reactionary policy, strangely at variance with every requirement of sound finance; but the declaration shows the spirit and purpose of those who by combined action are contend- ing for the control of the Government. Not satisfied with the debasement of our coin which would inevitably follow the free coinage of silver at 16 to 1, they would still further degrade our currency and threaten the public honor by the unlimited issue of an irredeemable paper currency. A graver manace to our financial standing and credit could hardly be conceived and every patriotic citizen should be aroused to promptly meet and effec- tually defeat it. It is a cause for painful regret and solicitude that an effort is being made by those high in the counsels of the allied parties to divide the people of this country into classes and create distinctions among us, which, in fact, do not exist and are repugnant to our form of government. These appeals to passion and prejudice are beneath the spirit and intelligence of a free people, ancf should be met with stern rebuke by those they are sought to influence, and I believe they will be. Every attempt to array class against class, " the classes against the masses," section against section, l-abor against capital, " the poor against the rich," or ir Merest 386 McKINLETS ACCEPTANCE against interest in the United States is in the highest degree reprehensible. It is opposed to the national instinct and interest, and should be resisted by every citizen. We are not a nation of classes, but of sturdy, free, independent and honorable people, despising the demagogue, and never capitulating to dishonor. This ever-recurring effort endangers popular govern- ment and is a menace to our liberties. It is not a new campaign device or party appeal. It is as old as government among men, but was never more un- timely and unfortunate than now. Washington warned us against it, and Webster said in the Senate, in words which I feel are singularly appropriate at this time : " I admonish the people against the object of outcries like these. I admonish every industrious laborer of this country to be on his guard against such delusion. I tell him the attempt is to play off his passion against his interest, and to prevail on him, in the name of liberty, to destroy all the fruits of liberty." Another issue of supreme importance is that of protection. The peril of free silver is a menace to be feared ; we are already experiencing the effect of par- tial free trade. The one must be averted ; the other corrected. The Republican party is wedded to the doctrine of protection and was never more earnest in its support and advocacy than now. If argument were needed to strengthen its devotion to " the American System," McKIXLEY'S ACCEPTANCE 387 or increase the hold of that system upon the party and people, it is found in the lesson and experience of the past three years. Men realize in their own daily lives what before was to many of them only report, history or tradition. They have had a trial of both systems and know what each has done for them. Washington, in his Farewell Address, September 17, 1796, 100 years ago, said : "As a very important source of strength and security, cherish puplic credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible; avoiding the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigor- ous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts which unaviodable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear." To facilitate the enforcement of the maxims which he announced he declared : " It is essential that you should practically bear in mind that toward the pay- ment of debts there must be revenue ; that to have revenue there must be taxes ; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient or unpleasant ; that the intrinsic embarrassment insepar- able from *he selection of the proper objects (which is always a choice of difficulties) ought to be a decisive motive for a candid construction of the conduct of the Government in making it ; and for a spirit of acquies- cence in the measures for obtaining revenue which public exigencies may at any time dictate." 388 McKINLEY'S ACCEPTANCE Animated by like sentiments, the people of the country must now face the conditions which beset them. " The public exigencies " demand prompt pro- tective legislation, which will avoid the accumulation of further debt by providing adequate revenues for the expenses of the Government. This is manifestly the requirement of duty. If elected President of the United States, it will be my aim to vigorously promote this object and give that ample encouragement to the occupations of the Amer- ican people, which, above all else, is so imperatively demanded at this juncture of our national affairs. In December, 1892, President Harrison sent his last message to Congress. It was an able and ex- haustive review of the condition and resources of the country. It stated our situation so accurately that I am sure it will not be amiss to recite his official and valuable testimony. " There never has been a time in our history," said he, "when work was so abundant, or when wages were so high, whether measured by the currency in which they are paid or by their power to supply the necessaries and comforts of life. The general average of prices has been such as to give to agriculture a fair participation in the general prosperity. The new industrial plants established since October 6, 1890, and up to October 22,- 1892, number 345, and the ex- tension of existing plants, 108. The new capital in- vested amounts to $40,446,060, and the number of additional employees, 37,285. McKINLEY'S .UVKl'TAXCE 309 " During the first six months of the present calendar year 135 new factories were built, of which 40 were cotton mills, 48 knitting mills, 26 woolen mills, 15 silk mills, 4 plush mills and 2 linen mills. Of the forty cotton mills 21 have been built in the Southern States." This fairly describes the happy condition of the country in December, 1893. What has it been since, and what is it now? The messages of President Cleveland from the be- ginning of his second administration to the present time abound with descriptions of the deplorable indus- trial and financial situation of the country. While no resort to history or official statement is required to advise us of the present condition and that which has prevailed during the past three years, I venture to quote from President Cleveland's first message, August 3, 1893, addressed to the Fifty-third Congress, which he had called together in extraordinary session. " The existence of an alarming and extraordinary business situation," said he, "involving the welfare and prosperity of all our people has constrained me to call together in extra session the people's repre- sentatives in Congress, to the end that through the wise and patriotic exercise of the legislstive duties with which they solely are charged, the present evils may by mitigated and dangers threatening the future averted. " Our unfortunate financial plight is not the result of untoward events, nor of conditions related to our 390 McKINLEY'S ACCEPTANCE natural resources. Nor is it traceable to any of the afflictions which frequently check national growth and prosperity. " With plenteous crops, with abundant promise of remunerative production and manufacture, with un- usual invitation to safe investment, and with satis- factory assurances to business enterprises, suddenly financial distrust and fear have sprung up on every side. " Numerous monied institutions have suspended because abundant assets were not immediately avail- able to meet the demands of frightened depositors. Surviving corporations and individuals are content to keep in hand the money they are usually anxious to loan and those engaged in legitimate business are surprised to find that the securities they offer for loans, though heretofore satisfactory, are no longer accepted. " Values, supposed to be fixed, are fast becoming conjectural and loss and failure have invaded every branch of business." What a startling and sudden change within the short period of eight months, from December, 1892 to August, 1893 ! What had occurred ? A change of administration ; all branches of the Government had been entrusted to the Democratic party, which was committed against the protective policy that had prevailed uninterupt- edly for more than thirty-two years and brought unexampled prosperity to the country and firmly McKIXLEY'S ACCEPTANCE 391 pledged to its complete overthrow and the substitu- tion of a tariff for revenue only. The change having been decreed by the elections in November, its effects were'at once anticipated and felt. We cannot close our eyes to these altered condi- tions, nor would it be wise to exclude from contem- plation and investigation the causes which produced them. , They are facts which we cannot as a people dis- regard, and we can only hope to improve our present condition by a study of their causes. In December, 1892, we had the same currency and practically the same volume of currency that we have now. It ag- gregated in 1892, $2,372,599,501 ; in 1893, $2,323,- 000,000 ; in 1894, $2,323,442,362, and in December, 1895, $2,194,000,230. The per capita of money has been practically the same during this whole period. The quality of the money has been identical -.all kept equal to gold. There is nothing connected with our money, there- fore, to account for this sudden and aggravated indus- trial change. Whatever is to be depreciated in our financial system it must everywhere be admitted that our money has been absolutely good and brought neither loss nor inconvenience to its holders. A de- preciated currency has not existed to further vex the troubled business situation. It is a mere pretence to attribute the hard times to the fact that all our currency is on a gold basis. Good money never made times hard. Those who assert 392 McKINLEY'S ACCEPTANCE that our present industrial and financial depression is the result of the gold standard have not read Amer- ican history aright or been careful students of the events of recent years. We never had greater prosperity in this country, in every field of employment and industry, than in the busy years from 1880 to 1892, during all of whicfo time this country was on a gold basis and employed more gold money in its fiscal and business operations than ever before. We had, too, a protective tariff, under which ample revenues were collected for the Government and an accumulating surplus which was constantly applied to the payment of the public debt. Let us hold fast to that which we know is good. It is not more money we want ; what we want is to put the money we already have at work. When money is employed men are employed. Both have always been steadily and remuneratively engaged during all the years of protective tariff legislation. When those who have money lack confidence IP the stability of values and investments they will not part with their money. Business is stagnated th* life-blood of trade is checked and congested. We can- not restore public confidence by an act which would revolutionize all values or an act which entails a de- ficiency in the public revenues. We cannot inspire confidence by advocating repu- diation or practicing dishonesty. We cannot restore confidence either to the Treasury or to the people with out a change in our present tariff legislation. McKIXLEY'S ACCEPTANCE 393 The only measure of a general nature that affected the Treasury and temperaments of our people passed by the Fifty-third Congress was the general tariff act, which did not receive the approval of the President. Whatever virtues may be claimed for that act there is confessedly one which it does not possess. It lacks the essential virtue of its creation the raising of revenue sufficient to supply the needs of the Government. It has at no time provided enough revenue for such needs, but it has caused a constant deficiency in the Treasury and a steady depletion in the earnings of labor and land. It has contributed to swell our national debt more than $262,000,000, a sum nearly as great as the debt of the Government from Washington to Lincoln, in- cluding all our foreign wars from the Revolution to the Rebellion. Since its passage work at home has been dimin- ished; prices of agricultural products have fallen, confidence has been arrested and general business de- moralization is seen on every hand. The total receipts under the tariff act of 1894 for the first twenty-two months of its enforcement, from September, 1894, to June, 1896, were $557,615,328, and the expenditures, $640,418,363, or a deficiency of $82,803,035. The decrease in our exports of American products and manufactures during the first fifteen months of the present tariff, as contrasted with the exports of 394 McKINLEY'S ACCEPTANCE the first fifteen months of the tariff of 1890, was 353,320. The excess of exports over imports during the first fifteen months of the tariff of 1890, was $213,972,- 968, but only $56,758,623 under the first fifteen months of the tariff of 1894, a loss under the latter of $157,214,345. The net loss in the trade balance of the United States has been $196,983,607 during the first fifteen months' operation of the tariff of 1894, as compared with the first fifteen months of the tariff of 1890. The loss has been large, constant and steady, at the rate of $13,130,000 per month, of $500,000 for every business day of the year. We have either been sending too much money out of the country or getting too little in, or both. We have lost steadily in both directions. Our foreign trade has been diminished and our domestic trade has suffered incalculable loss. Does not this suggest the cause of our present de- pression and indicate its remedy? Confidence in home enterprises has almost wholly disappeared. Our shops are closed, or running at half time at reduced wages and small profit, if not actual loss. Our men at home are idle, and while they are idle men abroad are occupied in supplying us with goods. Our unrivaled home market for the farmer has also greatly suffered, because those who constitute it the great army of American wage-earners are without the work and wages they formerly had. If they can- McKINLEY'S ACCEPTANCE 395 not earn wages, they cannot buy products. They can- not earn if they have no employment and when they do not earn the farmers' home market is lessened and impaired, and the loss is felt by both producer and consumer. The loss of earning power alone in this country in the past three years is sufficient to have produced our unfortunate business situation. If our labor was well employed and employed at as remunerative wages as in 1892, in a few months every farmer in the land would feel the glad change in the increased demand for his products and in the better prices which he would receive. It is not an increase in the volume of money which is the need of the time, but an increase of the volume of business ; not an increase of coin, but an increase of confidence ; not more coinage, but a more active use of the money coined ; not open mints for the un- limited coinage of the silver of the world, but open mills for the full and unrestricted labor of American workingmen. The employment of our mints for the coinage of the silver of the world would not bring the neces- saries and comforts of life back to our people. This will only come with the employment of the masses, and such employment is certain to follow the re- establishment of a wise protective policy which shall encourage manufacturing at home. Protection has lost none of its virtue and impor- tance. The first duty of the Republican party, if 336 McKINLEY'S ACCEPTANCE restored to power in the country, will be the enact- ment of a tariff law which will raise all the money necessary to conduct the Government, economically and honestly administered, and so adjusted as to give preference to home manufactures and adequate pro- tection to home labor and the home market. We are not committed to any special schedules or rates of duty. They are, and should be, always sub- ject to change to meet new conditions, but the prin- ciple upon which rates of duty are imposed remains the same. Our duties should always be high enough to measure the difference between the wages paid labor at home and in competing countries, and to adequately protect American investments and Ameri- can enterprises. Our farmers have been hurt by the changes in our tariff legislation as severely as our laborers and manu- facturers, badly as they have suffered. The Republican platform declares in favor of such encouragement to our sugar interests " as will lead to the production on American soil of all the sugar which the American people use." It promises to our wool and woolen interests the " most ample protection," a guaranty that ought to commend itself to every patriotic citizen. Never was a more grievous wrong done the farmers of our country than that so unjustly inflicted during the past three years upon the wool growers of America. Although among our most industrious and useful citizens, their interests have been practically de- McKIXLEY'S ACCEPTANCE :5!'7 stroyed and our woolen affairs involved in similai disaster. At no time within the past thirty-six years, and, perhaps, never during any previous period, have so many of our woolen factories been suspended as now. The Republican party can be relied upon to correct these great wrongs if again entrusted with the con- trol of Congress. Another declaration of the Republican platform that has my most cordial support is that which favors reciprocity. The splendid results of the reciprocity arrangements that were made under authority of the tariff law of 1890 are striking suggestives. The brief period they were in force, in most cases only three years, was not long enough to thoroughly test their great values, but sufficient was shown by the trial to conclusively demonstrate the importance and the wisdom of their adoption. In 1892 the export trade of the United States attained the highest point in our history. The aggre- gate of our exports that year reached the immense sum of $1,030,278,148, a sum greater by $100,000,- 000 than the exports of any previous year. In 1893, owing to the threat of unfriendly tariff legislation, the total dropped to $847,665,194. Our exports of domestic merchandise decreased $189,000,- 000, but reciprocity still secured us a large trade in Central and South America, and a larger trade with the West Indies than we had ever before enjoyed. The increase of trade with the countries with 398 McKItfLEY'S ACCEPTANCE which we had reciprocity agreements was $3,560,515 over our trade in 1892, and $16,440,721 over our trade in 1891. The only countries with which the United States traded that showed increased exports in 1893 were practically those with which we had reciprocity arrangements. The reciprocity treaty between this country and Spain, touching the markets of Cuba and Porto Rico, was announced September 1, 1891. The growth of our trade with Cuba was phenomenal. In 1891 we sold that country but 114,441 barrels of flour ; in 1892, 366,175; in 1893, 616,406; and in 1894, 622,248. Here was a growth of nearly 500 per cent, while our exportations of flour to Cuba for the year ending June 30, 1895 the year following the repeal of the reciprocity treaty fell to 379,896 barrels, a loss of nearly half our trade with that country. The value of our total exports of merchandise from the United States to Cuba in 1891 the year prior to the negotiation of the reciprocity treaty was $12,- 224,888; in 1892, $17,953,579; in 1893, $24,157,- 698; in 1894, $20,125,321, but in 1895, after the annulment of the reciprocity agreement, it fell to only $12,887,661. Many similar examples might be given of our in- creased trade under reciprocity with other countries, but enough has been shown of the efficacy of the legislation of 1890 to justify the speedy restoration of its reciprocity provisions. MURAT HALSTEAIX THE PRESIDENT AND HIS CABINET. (Photo of Long Copyrighted 1897 by Purdy of Boston.) (Photo of McKinley Copyrighted by Elmer Chickering,) fPboto of Smith Copyrighted by Rockwood.) McKINLEY'S ACCEPTANCE 401 In my judgment, Congress should immediately re- store the reciprocity section of the old law with such amendments, if any, as time and experience sanction as wise and proper. The underlying principle of this legislation must, however, be strictly observed. It is to afford new markets for our surplus agricultural and manufac- tured products without loss to the American laborer of a single day's work that he might otherwise procure. The declaration of the platform touching foreign immigration is one of peculiar importance at this time, when our own laboring people are in such distress. I am in hearty sympathy with the present legislation restricting foreign immigration and favor such exten- sion of the laws as will secure the United States from invasion by the debased and criminal classes of the Old World. While we adhere to the public policy under which our country has received great bodies of honest, in- dustrious citizens, who have added to the wealth, pro- gress and power of the country, and while we wel- come to our shores the well-disposed and industrious immigrant who contributes by his energy and intelli- gence to the cause of free government, we want no immigrants who do not seek our shores to become citizens. We should permit none to participate in the ad- vantages of our civilization who does not sympathize with our aims and form of government. We should receive none who comes to make war upon our institu- 402 McKINLEY'S ACCEPTANCE tions and profit by public disquiet and turmoil. Against all such our gates must be tightly closed. The soldiers and sailors of the Union should neither be neglected nor forgotten. The Government which they served so well must not make their lives or con- dition harder by treating them as suppliants for relief in old age or distress, nor regard with disdain or con- tempt the earnest interest one comrade naturally manifests in the welfare of another. Doubtless there have been pension abuses and frauds in the numerous claims allowed by the Govern- ment, but the policy governing the administration of the Pension Bureau must always be fair and liberal. No deserving applicant should ever suffer because of a wrong perpetrated by or for another. Our soldiers and sailors gave the Government the best they had. They freely offered health, strength, limb and life to save the country in the time of its greatest peril, and the Government must honor them in their need as in their service with the respect and gratitude due to brave, noble and self-sacrificing men who are justly entitled to generous aid in their in- creasing necessities. The declaration of the Republican platform in favor of the upbuilding of our merchant marine has my hearty approval. The policy of discriminating duties in favor of our shipping, which prevailed in the early years of our history, should be again adopted by Con- gress and vigorously supported until our prestige and supremacy on the seas is fully attained. McKENLEY'S ACCEPTANCE 403 We should no longer contribute directly or indi- rectly to the maintenance of the colossal marine of foreign countries, but provide an efficient and com- plete marine of our own. Now that the American navy is assuming a position commensurate with our importance as a nation, a policy I am glad to observe the Republican platform strongly indorses, we must supplement it with a mer- chant marine that will give us the advantages, in both our coastwise and foreign trade that we ought natu- rally and properly to enjoy. It should be at once a matter of public policy and national pride to repossess this immense and prosper- ous trade. The pledge of the Republican National Convention that our civil service laws " shall be sustained and thoroughly and honestly enforced and extended wher- ever practicable " is in keeping with the position of the party for the past twenty-four years, and will be faithfully observed. Our opponents decry these reforms. They appear willing to abandon all the advantages gained after so many years of agitation and effort. They encourage a return to methods of party favoritism which both parties have often denounced, that experience has condemned and that the people have repeatedly dis- approved. The Republican party earnestly opposes this reac- tionary and entirely unjustifiable policy. It will take 404 McKINLEY'S ACCEPTANCE no backward step upon this question. It will seek to improve but never degrade the public service. There are other important and timely declara- tions in the platform which I cannot here discuss. I must content myself with saying that they have my approval. If, as Republicans, we have lately addressed our attention with what may seem great stress and earn- estness to the new and unexpected assault upon the financial integrity of the Government, we have done it because the menace is so grave as to demand espe- cial consideration, and because we are convinced that if the people are aroused to the true understanding and meaning of this silver inflation movement they will avert the danger. In doing this we feel that we render the best service possible to the country, and we appeal to the intelli- gence, conscience and patriotism of the people, irre- spective of party or section, for their earnest support. We avoid no issues. We meet the sudden, danger- ous and revolutionary assault upon law and order and upon those to whom is confided by the Constitution and laws the authority to uphold and maintain them which our opponents have made with the same cour- age that we have faced every emergency since our organization as a party, more than forty years ago. Government by law must first be assured ; every- thing else can wait. The spirit of lawlessness must be extinguished by the fires of an unselfish and lofty patriotism. Mc-KIXLEY\S ACCEPTANCE 405 Every attack upon the public faith and every sug- gestion of the repudiation of debts, public or private, must be rebuked by all men who believe that honesty is the best policy, or who love their country and would preserve unsullied its national honor. The country is to be congratulated upon the almost total obliteration of the sectional lines which for many years marked the division of the United States into slave and free territory and finally threatened its partition into two separate governments by the dread ordeal of civil war. The era of reconciliation, so long and earnestly de- sired by General Grant and many other great leaders, North and South, has happily come, and the feeling of distrust and hostility between the sections is every- where vanishing, let us hope never to return. Nothing is better calculated to give strength to the nation at home than to increase our influence abroad and add to the permanency and security of our free institutions than the restoration of cordial relations between the people of all sections and parts of our beloved country. If called by the suffrages of the people to assume the duties of the high office of President of the United States, I shall count it a privilege to aid, even in the slightest degree, in the promotion of the spirit of frat- ernal regard which should animate and govern the citizens of every section, State or part of the Republic. After the lapse of a century since its utterance, let us, at length and forever hereafter, heed the admoni- 406 McKINLEY'S ACCEPTANCE tion of Washington, " There snould be no North, no South, no East, no West, but a common country." It shall be my constant aim to improve every op- portunity to advance the cause of good government by promoting that spirit of forbearance and justice which is so essential to our prosperity and happiness by joining most heartily in all proper efforts to restore the relations of brotherly respect and affection which in our early history characterized all the people of all the States. I would be glad to contribute toward binding in indivisible union the different divisions of the country, which, indeed, now " have every inducement of sym- pathy and interest" to weld them together more strongly than ever. I would rejoice to see demonstrated to the world that the North and the South and the East and the West are not separated or in danger of becoming separated because of sectional or party differences. The war is long since over; "we are not enemies, but friends," and as friends we will faithfully and cordially co-operate, under the approving smile of Him who has thus far so signally sustained and guided us, to preserve inviolate our country's name and honor, of its peace and good order, of its con- tinued ascendancy amongst the greatest governments on earth. WILLIAM M'KINLEY. CHAPTER XIX. SALIENT EXTRACTS FROM MAJOR McKINLEY'S ADDRESSES TO REPRESENTATIVE DELEGATIONS. EVEN before the date of the publication of his brilliant letter of acceptance, and thence on to the day of his triumphant election, Major McKinley was called upon daily almost hourly to address various visiting delegations upon the supreme issue of the campaign. His speeches were always to the point, pungent in phrase, and pregnant with fact. As in his letter of acceptance, so in his speeches, he multiplied the resources of the campaign for sound money, and gave convincing arguments for an honest standard of value. Three days prior to his acceptance of the nomina- tion, he addressed a body of 500 farmers, and made an earnest appeal for an honest currency. In the course of his address he said : "Can the farmer be helped by free coinage of silver ? " He cannot be helped because if the nominal price of grain were to rise, through an inflation of the currency, the price of everything else would rise 408 McKINLEY'S ADDRESSES also, arid the farmer would be relatively no better off than he was before. " He would not get any more real value for his grain than he gets now, and would suffer from the general demoralization which would follow the free coinage of silver. You cannot help the farmer by more coinage of silver. He can only be helped by more consumers for his products. You cannot help him by free trade, but, as I have shown, he can be hurt, and seriously hurt, by the free introduction of competing products into this country. " Better a thousand times enlarge the markets for American products than to enlarge the mints for the silver products of the world. You might just as well understand now that you cannot add value to anything by diminishing the measure, of the value with which the thing is sold or exchanged. " If you can increase the value by lowering the measure of value, and you want to benefit the farmer, then make the bushel smaller, the pound lighter and declare a legal dozen less than twelve. " The home market is the best friend of the farmer. It is his best market. It is his only reliable market. It is his own natural market. " Prosperity of manufacturers is inseparable from the prosperity of agriculture. Set all our wheels in motion, set all our spindles whirling, set all our men at work on full time, start up the idle workshops of the country, bring back confidence and business, and the farmer will at once feel the influence in the McKINLEY'S ADDKESSES 409 greater demand for his products and in the better prices he would receive. When the farmer has found a market for his goods, he wants his pay for what he sells in such unquestioned coin that he will know it is good not only to-day, but will be certain to be good every day of the year and in all countries of the world. " Free silver will not cure over-production or under- consumption. Free silver will not remove the com- petition of Russia, India and the Argentine Republic. This competition would remain if you would coin all the silver of the world. Free silver will not increase the demand for your wheat or make a single new con- sumer. " You don't get consumers through the mints. You get them through the factories. You will not get them by increasing the circulation of money in the United States. You will only get them by increasing the manufacturing establishments in the United States." Again, he said to the Chicago Commercial M'Kinley Club on August 29th : " If there is one kind of money that is good in every civilized world and another that passes in only some parts of the world, the people of the United States will never be content with anything short of the best. " We have been doing business on that basis since January 1, 1879. We will continue that policy so long as we have a just regard for our honest obliga- tions and high standing as a nation. 410 McKINLEY'S ADDHESSES " Free silver at a ratio of 16 to 1, or about half its true bullion value, is not a full dollar. Good money never made times hard. And poor money never made times good. " My fellow-citizens, our contest this year is for the country's honor and prosperity. The need of the hour is work for willing hands, work and wages for the unemployed and a chance to earn the good dollars which are now idle and are only waiting in their hid- ing places for a restoration of confidence. " Our contest is for the good faith of the nation and the welfare of the people, and we can proclaim with confidence the same supreme faith in the people which upheld Lincoln in every trial of the war. As he said, ' Intelligence and patriotism and a firm reliance in Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land are still competent to adjust in the best way all our pre- sent difficulties.' In this faith we submit our conten- tion to the great tribunal of the people." ANTE-ELECTION SPEECHES. It is not easy to comprise within the compass of this volume even brief extracts from a few of the leading ante-election addresses delivered by Major M'Kinley, but we cull the following : To the Colored Riflemen of Cleveland : " I con- gratulate you, gentlemen, upon the splendid progress that your race has made since emancipation. You have done better, you have advanced more rapidly than it was believed possible at that time : you have 411 improved greatly the educational advantages wliich you have had. Your people everywhere, North and South, are accumulating property and to-day you stand as among the most conservative of the citizens of this great Republic. " We are now engaged in a political contest and your presence in such vast numbers here to-day evidence the interest which you have in the public questions that are now engaging the attention of the American people. We have a great country and we must keep it great. " The post which the United States must occupy both in wages and industries, and in the integrity of its finances and currency, must be at the head of the nations of the earth. To that place of honor the people of the country must restore it this year. They have the opportunity that they have wished for since 1892. Will they meet it this year ? " We want in the United States neither cheap money nor cheap labor. We will have neither the one nor the other. We must not forget that nothing is cheap to the American people wliich comes from abroad when it entails idleness upon our own laborers." To 3,000 Pennsylvania workingmen (on Labor Day) : " When a man is out of a job he is usually out of money, and to live he must draw upon his savings if he has any. If not upon his savings then upon his credit. What the idle morkingman w r ants is a job that means money to him. The mints, if they were thrown wide open to the coinage of every character 412 McKINLEY'S ADDKESSES of metal and were multiplied 100 fold in capacity, would neither furnish the workingman a job nor supply his exhausted savings or give him credit. Nothing will accompish that but work. Work at fair wages, and that will only come through confidence restored by a wise financial and industrial policy. " And there is another thing we ought to remem- ber, that free silver at a ratio of 16 to 1, or any other ratio, will not repeal the great law of supply and de- mand. It is a great error to suppose that you can enhance values by diminishing the value of money that you can increase the value of anything by chang- ing its measure. You can no more do that than you can increase quantity by lowering the bushel measure. Garfield uttered a great truth when speaking for the redemption of specie payments he said: 'In the name of every man who wants his own when he has earned it, I demand that he do not make the wages of the poor man to shrivel in his hands after he has earned them. But that his money shall be made bet- ter and easier until the plowholder's money shall be as good as the bondholder's money. Until our stand- ard is one, and there is no longer one money for the rich and another for the poor.' "I thank you, my countrymen, for this generous and gracious call here to-day. One of the great sources of comfort to me in this great campaign is the feeling that I have behind me the workingmen of the United States. It will give me pleasure now to meet and greet each and every one of you." McKINLEY'S ADDRESSES 413 To a delegation from Vermont : " A people who could tax themselves most heavily to equip and main- tain the armies and navies of the Union, and continue the most extensive and expensive war in history, will not turn their backs upon the soldiers of that war, nor seek to pay their pensions in dollars worth only half their face value. " A people who emerged from that war with an in- terest-bearing debt of $2,382,000,000, or $70 per capita for our entire population in 1865, will not now, after having honestly paid three-fourths of that great debt, ever seek directly or indirectly to repudiate one dollar of it or cheapen the coin of payment. " A people, I say, who proceeded in good faith to pay off that debt with such unparalleled rapidity that, it was estimated in 1888, up to that time they had paid $123 for every minute of every day of every year from 1865 to 1888, will not now falter, bargain or scheme to defraud any creditor of the Government, whoever or wherever he may be." To G. A. R. veterans of Ohio : " You were good citizens before you went to the war ; you were good soldiers in the war ; you have been good citizens ever since, standing by the same old flag, no matter where you are. Let me point to you a picture ! See a million soldiers there, Flushed with triumph, and with weap'ona Flashing keen and bright and bare. Vanished ! Wondrous transformation ! Where is now that mighty band ? 414 McKINLEY'S ADDEESSES Do they roam, a vast banditti, Pillaging their native land ? No, we point to field and workshop ; Let the world the moral see, There, beneath the dust of labor, Toil the veteran soldiery. Ye, who, mightiest in the battle, On the mountain and the plain Wrought, yes, wrought your greatest triumph When ye sought your homes again. Sought your home, 'mid peace and quiet, Grasping with your strong right hand Implements of honest labor, Toiling to rebuild the land. " You were patriots then ; you are patriots to-day. You know no politics in your Grand Army posts, but you do know patriotism when you see it." To the steel workers of Braddock, Pa. : " From the hour it was determined by the American people that the Republican party which with but a single inter- ruption had been in control of the Government for thirty years, was to go out of power and another party with a different policy was to come in, that moment every business man of the country assumed an attitude of anxious waiting and of fear and anxiety. " While business men were waiting to know what legislation was to be, business was languishing from one end of the country to the other, and labor was without work. Then we commenced living from hand to mouth, and we have been living from hand to mouth ever since. And, as an old comrade said to me the other day, the distance seemed to be getting greater with every succeeding year, McKIXLEY'S ADDRESSES 415 " According to a census recently taken by a news- paper in New York, it appears that in July, 1892, 577 employers of labor in the United States that year gave work to 114,231 hands. How was it in July, 1896 ? The same employers gave work to 78,700 hands; 35,531 men who had been employed in 1892 were thrown out of employment in 1896 and put in a state of idleness, resulting in a loss of more than 30 per cent, to labor. "In July, 1892, the wages paid to the 114,231 hands amounted to $3,927,000; in July, 1896, the earnings of the 78,700 hands amounted to only $2,- 469,712, a loss to labor in a single month in these establishments of $1,457,000, a decrease or loss to labor of 40 per cent." To delegates from Indiana : " I believe in America for Americans, native born and naturalized. I be- lieve in the American pay roll. And I don't believe in diminishing that pay roll by giving work to any- body else under another flag while we've got an idle man under our flag. " Four years ago the laborer was agitating the ques- tion of shorter hours. We then had too much to do. I have heard no discussion of that kind for four years. And I never heard a laboring man discussing the de- sirability of having shorter dollars. " The cause of complaint of our opponents is, first, that we have not enough money, and, second, that sur money is too good. " To the first complaint, I answer that the per 416 McKINLEY'S ADDEESSEB capita of circulating medium of this country has been greater since the so-called ' crime of 1873' than it ever was before, and that it has been greater in the past five years than it ever was in all our history. " We have not only got the best money in the world, but we've got more of it than most of the nations of the world. We've got more money than the United Kingdom per capita. We've got more money than Germany per capita. We've got more money than Italy per capita. We've got more money than Switzerland, Greece, Spain, Roumania, Servia, Austria, Hungary, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Rus- sia, Turkey. Mexico, and the Central and Southern American States, and more than Japan or China per capita. " So that some other reason than the lack of volume of money must be found to account for the present condition of the country." To Buffalo, N. Y., real estate men : " The courts which interpret and execute the law must be pre- served on that exalted plane of purity and incorrupt- ibility which have so signally characterized the American judiciary. These courts must be upheld for the safety and defense of the citizen. When the law and those whose constitutional duty it is to exe- cute them are assailed the Government itself is as- sailed. " If there are those who would break down law and disturb the peace and good order of society, then those who value these safeguards as essential to our MILITARY HEROES OF SANTIAGO AND PORTO RJCO. o or 8h eVe ^ Co P7 ri gfcted by Rockwood.) to 01 Sbafter Copyrighted by Cha*. Prk*r.) NAVAL HEROES OF SANTIAGO, (Photo of Hobson Copyrighted by Falk.) McKIXLEY'S ADDRESSES 419 liberty must sacredly guard and defend them by their ballots. This they will do with the same earnest pa- triotism that they have always displayed in every great emergency in the life of the nation. " To strike at the credit of the country is to deal a blow at its prosperity. It destroys confidence, and, when that is gone business stops and the currents of trade are dried up. Confidence, in a measure, and in a very great measure, is the capital of the world. Destroy confidence and you invite ruin to every en- terprise in the land. "Absolute integrity of payment in all transactions, public and private, lies at the foundation of confi- dence, and, when confidence is once firmly estab- lished, there is scarcely any limit to capital. This is the universal experience of both government and in- dividual. "A tainted credit is a constant embarrassment to government and citizens, and, when it once fastens itself upon either, it is hard for them to recover. A limping credit attracts no capital and inspires no con- fidence." To tin-plate men : " I submit to all of you, no matter what may have been your politics in the past, whether you would not prefer to have that tin-plate factory in your county, and in your State than to have it in Wales. The more factories you can have in any community the better will be the general in- dustrial conditions and the better will be the market for the farmer who produces food products. But it 420 McKINLEY'S ADDRESSES is not my purpose to address you on political ques- tions." To Indiana railroad men : " Why, talk about the creditors of this country! Our opponents animad- vert against them. Who are the creditors of this country ? They are the men who labor in this country. "The greatest creditors of this country are its workingmen. Aside from what is due them on in- vestments and savings, their current wages make them the largest credit class in the United States. " The employers of this country owe their em- ployees every thirty days in good times more than the whole debt of the bonds of the United States, while nearly five hundred millions of dollars are paid out annually to the railroad employees alone." To a delegation from Centre county, Pa. : " I have often wondered if Pennsylvania's powerful influence for stability, conservatism and prosperity in the Union and its great strength and self-supporting ca- pacity as a Commonwealth in that Union were prop- erly appreciated. Her agriculture, commerce and manufacturing, while independent in one sense, have always been mutually inter-dependent, beneficial and helpful. The whole community has profited by each and all of them. " This has been the case ever since its settlement in pioneer days, and under its wise system of politi- cal economy, not created or fostered by the creed of visionaries, but that of plain, sensible, practical men. McKIXLEY'S ADDRESSES 421 " No other similar reward of husbandry is pre- sented anywhere, and I make no apology, my fellow- citizens, for your getting a like policy everywhere or for having always endeavored to the extent of my efforts to continue this wise system under which you have such splendid results in the State of Pennsyl- vania. "Call it the Pennsylvania system, if you will; it only does honor to Pennsylvania and her statesman- ship, for it benefits all our laborers and farmers in all parts of the American Union. Why should we not do all our work and spend all our own wages at home, giving to both farmers and workingmen the richest rewards for their labor of any country under the sun ? Answer that, my fellow-citizens." To miners from Clarion county, Pa. : " There is one thing which I think we are sometimes too apt to forget. We are too apt to forget what is behind us, and too apt to be heedless of our own experience. We can hardly realize that from 1873 to 1893 we re- duced the public debt from $2,333,331,308 in 1866 to $570,000,000. We paid off during those twenty years $1,623,581,673 of the public debt. And we were under a protective and sound money system when we were making the large payments. Two- thirds of that great debt has disappeared, and while we were paying it off we were building in this coun- try the most splendid industrial enterprises, giving steady employment to American labor at fair wages, and giving to the farmers of the country a just reward 422 McKINLEY'S ADDEESSES for their toil and labor. During the period, for the greater part of the time, we were selling more gold abroad than we were buying abroad. And the bal- ance of trade was, therefore, in our favor, and the balance of trade, settled as it was in gold, gave us the good yellow money from the other side of the ocean. No, my fellow-citizens, four years ago the people of this country determined to change that policy, and they did change it." To the McKinley Club, of Goodland, Ind. : The idea that the Government can create wealth is a mere myth. There is nothing that can create wealth ex- cept labor. " Now the best way to get this money is one of the questions in this campaign. Is it easier to raise it by direct taxation, by taxing the people in their oc- cupations, on their property and on their lands, or is it not better to raise it by putting the tax upon the foreign products that come into this country to seek a market in the United States ? " The latter is the policy and purpose of the Re- publican party. The Republican party believes that the great bulk of the money required to pay the ex- penses of the Government should be raised by put- ting a tax upon the foreign products that come into this country to compete with American products. If we could create money by merely starting our mints running, then there would be no necessity of taxes." To the United Italian Republican Club, of Pitts- burg : " We are a nation of working people ; we rec- McKINLEY'S ADDRESSES ognize no caste and will tolerate none beneath our flag. (A voice : ' We know it,' and great applause.) The voice of one citizen is as potent as the voice of another, and the united voice when constitutionally expressed is the law of the land. The great English statistician, Mr. Mulhall, declares that no other civ- ilized country but the United States could boast of 41,000,000 instructed citizens in a total population of less than 70,000,000, all of whom are equal bene- ficiaries of the advantages and blessings and opportu- nities of free government. " The issues of this campaign cannot be overstated in their importance. What are they? First, shall .we sustain law and order and uphold the tribunals of justice, which in all the trying times of the past have been our greatest safety and our pride ? Shall we do this, men of Italian birth and descent ? Shall we continue a financial policy which is safe and sound, and gives to us a money with which to do a business that is stable in value and which commands respect, not only at home, but in every commercial nation of the world ? " Shall we restore the industrial policy by which this nation has become mightier than all the other great commercial, manufacturing, mining and farm- ing nations of the world ? "On these questions there should be no two opin- ions ; and I believe this year the people of this coun- try of every nationality, of every race and clan, loyal as they are to this Government of their adoption, 424 McKINLEY'S ADDRESSES will unitedly sustain the authority of law and the Constitution. Continue an honest financial system which will share work and wages and employment and comforts for labor, good markets for the farmers, in which all the people will participate." To miners and oil men of McDonald, Pa. : " We can truthfully claim as Americans that our na- tional administrations in all the years of the past, whether Federal or Democratic or Whig or Republi- can, have for the most part conducted the Govern- ment with credit, honor and efficiency. To our credit, be it said, that not one of these administra- tions, whatever may have been their mistakes and failures, ever suggested, much less attempted, the repudiation, directly or indirectly, of a single dollar, or cent, honestly due to a citizen of this or any other country of the globe, nor counseled the establishment of a money for the uses of the people tainted with the slightest dishonor. " Shall we now consent or seem to consent by our votes to lower that high standard or reverse the proud policy which this Government has pur- sued from its beginning ? Shall we tolerate now a policy that would cheat any of our creditors, whoever or wherever they may be ? " Shall we tolerate a policy that would deprive the brave men living, or their widows or orphans, of a farthing in the pensions that a grateful Gov- ernment has granted them ? 'How could we recall their patriotic services, or the heroic services of X'S ADDRESSES Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln and Grant, if we were to stoop to shave one dollar either from the money credit of the Government, or those of her creditors of the Government who were willing to give their lives to save the Union?" To a Tennessee delegation : " Tennessee can justly boast that she has been the birthplace and home of many of the eminent men of our country. She has given to the Presidency three of her distin- guished citizens Jackson, Polk and Johnson. She gave to the Lone Star Republic of Texas that sturdy old patriot, Sam Houston, one of its early Presi- dents. She has given to the nation such splendid patriots, statesmen and upright public servants, among whom are Hugh L. White, John Bell, Felix Grundy, David Crockett, Admiral Farragut, David Givin, of California, and that distinguished journalist of Kentucky, Henry Watterson. " The record this year of Tennessee should be in keeping with the principles emblazoned on her State seal, Agriculture, Manufacture and Commerce. With prosperity in these fields of human activity, she can always advance ; without it, she must in- evitably recede and decline. " Men of Tennessee, do you stand by the prin- ciples enunciated by the immortal Jackson? Do you favor a protective tariff and honest money ? I am glad to be assured by your voices that you do, and that you have not forgotten the force and merit of his great example. Do you believe in his decla- 426 McKINLEY'S ADDRESSES ration for the enforcement and the majesty of public law ? Are you willing -to ' compromise ' the great principles he so steadfastly upholds in defense of the Constitution, the courts and the citizen ? " To the thousands of visitors on " Illinois Day " (Oct. 21st) : " You have the immortal Lincoln. That's enough for one State. You have the mighty Grant, who filled the world with his fame as he joru- neyed in the pathway of the sun. Then you had Logan. Then you have Oglesby grand old Dick Oglesby, and you have Tanner. "Your farm products have reached $270,000,000 in a single year, and some people seem to think you would produce more if you had free silver ; or more than $5 an acre for every acre of land. Now that the price of wheat is going up and silver is going down, and your crops have been exceptionally good, I cannot see how even the most pessimistic can con- vince you, or themselves, that our present gold stand- ard, which we have had since 1879, can be of the least possible detriment to you. " It was announced from this platform that you had made the largest registration of any State in the American Union ; and that ought to mean the largest majority of any State in the American Union for sound money and protection. What will be your answer to the open challenges to be made for public honesty and public morals ? " You can never permanently advance or prosper under any system of false finance or false political HeKINLEY>S ADDRESSES 427 economy that was ever devised by the will of man. You can only prosper upon honest principles, honest purposes, honest laws, public and private honor. "Agriculture will be prostrated, commerce will languish, mining will decrease and manufactures di- minish, if, to the misery of partial free trade, you add the heresy of free silver, which in this contest means the violation of the existing contracts and the utter disregard of good faith and the absolute repudiation in whole or in part of our public or private obliga- tions. Disguise the issues as you may, the bold, cold, hard facts remain, and no amount of chicanery or sophistry will hide them." To his neighbors and fellow-citizens of Canton : " The American people will never take so rash and wicked a step as to invalidate or impair the value of their own government obligations. They .will never consent by popular vote or otherwise to the repudia- tion of one farthing of their national debt. They will never brook the thought of not looking the whole world in the face and challenging any nation to point to a more honorable or creditable record than ours." To some 150 or more college students coming from over thirty institutions in couples and trios : " ' Study the Constitution of the United States thoroughly ; contrast its teachings with the doctrines of the poli- tical parties of the day, and vote with the one you then believe will do the most for your country.' " " The Republican party can well afford to submit 428 McKINLEY'S ADDRESSES to that test ; it never has shrunk from the severest tests of the past and has never suffered thereby. But in the alignment of parties to-day and in the vital questions at issue between them, it especially and cheerfully invites comparison and contrast. It has no aim but the public good and the honor of the American name, and confidently submits its conten- tion, not to a class or a section, but to the whole American people. " Daniel Webster always stood for America, and I can recall no grander words in any oration than the ringing, truthful and touching sentences in which, after paying his own State grand and well-deserved tribute, he in terms of endearment claimed Washing- ton, Henry, Marshall, Jefferson, Madison and other distinguished Southerners as just as much his country- men as any of the noble patriots of New England. " He expressed in that wonderful speech the true sentiment of this campaign, the dominant, moving force of the present national contest. This is the spirit that should animate every young man in the country, in college and out, everywhere to-day a national spirit a broad and comprehensive patri- otism, a genuine Americanism. 61 If I could give the young men of the United States a message that I would have them hear and heed, it would be ' Stand up for America ; devote your life to its cause ; love your own homes and prove as worthy of our cherished free institutions as they are worthy of your allegiance and services.' McKIXLEY'S ADDRESSES 429 " Let not the high standard of national honor raised by the fathers be lowered by their sons. Let learn- ing, liberty and law be exalted and enthroned. " You come from the great educational institutions of the land, and I dare say love to contemplate with me their great and increasing importance. Each is for his own, but proud of all, and there are none but would give honor to the great public school system of the country. " In addition to the great outlay by the nation upon common schools, America has just reason to be proud of the private benefactions which our philanthropic citizens are constantly making to our colleges and universities. They have fallen off, it is true, in the last three years, and they will be still more reduced if we are ever so unwise as to enter upon the project of free silver as now proposed, or any other scheme of false finance." CHAPTER xx. MCKINLEY'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS. A lofty appeal to all patriotic Americans for the prompt solution of the great and pressing problems of the National Government. FELLOW-CITIZENS : In obedience to the will of the people and in their presence by the authority vested in me by them, I must be both " sure we are right " and " make haste slowly." If, therefore, Congress in its wisdom shall deem it expedient to create a commission to take under con- sideration the revision of our coinage, banking and currency laws, and give them that exhaustive, care- ful and dispassionate examination that their impor- tance demands, I shall cordially concur in such action. If such power is vested in the President, it is my purpose to appoint a commission of prominent, well- informed citizens of different parties, who will com- mand publi| confidence both on account of their ability andfcpecial fitness for the work. Business psperience and public training may thus be combined,: and the patriotic zeal of the friends of the countrylbe so directed that such a report will be made as to receive the support of all parties, and our 430 McKINLEY'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS 431 finances cease to be the subject of mere partisan contention. The experiment is, at all events, worth a trial, and, in my opinion, it can but prove beneficial to the entire country. The question of international bimetallism will have early and earnest attention. It will be my con- stant endeavor to secure it by co-operation with the other great commercial Powers of the world. Until that condition is realized, when the parity between our gold and silver money springs from and is supported by the relative value of the two metals, the value of the silver already coined, and of that which may hereafter be coined, must be kept con- stantly at par with gold by every resource at our command. The credit of the Government, the integrity of its currency and the inviolability of its obligations must be preserved. This will be the commanding verdict of the people, and it will not be unheeded. Economy is demanded in every branch of the Gov- ernment at all times, but especially in periods like the present of depression in business and distress among the people. The severest economy must be observed in all public expenditures, and extravagance stopped wherever it is found, and prevented wherever in the future it may be developed. If the revenues are to remain as now, the only re- lief that can come must be from decreased expendi- tures. 432 McKINLEY'S I^AUGUEAL ADDRESS But the present must not become the permanent condition of the Government. It has been our uniform practice to retire, not in- crease, our outstanding obligations, and this policy must again be resumed and vigorously enforced. Our revenues. should always be large enough to meet with ease and promptness not only our current needs, and the principal and interest of the public debt, but to make proper and liberal provision for that most deserving body of public creditors, the soldiers and sailors, and the widows and orphans, who are the pensioners of the United States. The Government must not be permitted to run be- hind, or increase its debt, in times like the present. Suitably to provide against this is the mandate of duty ; the certain and easy remedy for most of our financial difficulties. A deficiency is inevitable so long as the expen- ditures of the Government exceed its receipts. It can only be met by loans, or an increased revenue. While a large annual surplus of revenue may invite waste and extravagance, inadequate revenue creates distrust and undermines public and private credit. Neither should be encouraged. Between more loans and more revenue, there ought to be but one opinion. We should have more re- venue, and that without delay, hindrance, or post- ponement. A surplus in the Treasury created by loans is not a permanent or safe reliance. It will suffice while it McKIXLF.Y'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS 433 lasts, but it cannot last long while the outlays of the Government are greater than its receipts, as has been, the case during the past two years. Nor must it be forgotten that, however much such loans may temporarily relieve the situation, the Government is still indebted for the amount of the surplus thus accrued, which it must ultimately pay, while its ability to pay is not strengthened but weak- ened by a continued deficit. Loans are imperative in great emergencies to pre- serve the Government or its credit, but a failure to supply needed revenue in time of peace for the main- tenance of either has no justification. The best way for the Government to maintain its credit is to pay as it goes not by resorting to loans, but by keeping out of debt through an adequate in- come secured by a system of taxation, external or in- ternal, or both. It is the settled policy of the Government, pursued from the beginning and practised by all parties and Administrations, to raise the bulk of our revenue from taxes upon foreign productions entering the United States for sale and consumption, and avoiding, for the most part, every form of direct taxation except in time of war. The country is clearly opposed to any needless ad- ditions to the subjects of internal taxation, and is committed by its latest popular utterance to the sys- tem of tariff taxation. There can be no misunderstanding, either, about the principle upon which this tariff taxation shall be levied. Nothing has ever been made plainer at a general election than that the controlling principle in the raising of revenue from duties on imports is zeal- ous care for American interests and American labor. The people have declared that such legislation should be had as will give ample protection and encourage- ment to the industries and the development of our country. It is, therefore, earnestly hoped and expected that Congress will, at the earliest practicable moment, en- act revenue legislation that shall be fair, reasonable, conservative, and just, and which, while supplying sufficient revenue for public purposes, will still be signally beneficial and helpful to every section and every enterprise of the people. To this policy we are all, of whatever party, firmly bound by the voice of the people a power vastly more potential than the expression of any political platform. The paramount duty of Congress is to stop deficien- cies by the restoration of that protective legislation which has always been the firmest prop of the Trea- sury. The passage of such a law or laws would strengthen the credit of the Government both at home and abroad, and go far towards stopping the drain upon the gold reserve held for the redemption of our currency, which has been heavy and wellnigh constant for several years. In the revision of the tariff, special attention should MeKIXLEY'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS 435 be given to the re-enactment and extension of the re- ciprocity principle of the law of 1890, under which so great a stimulus was given to our foreign trade in new and advantageous markets, for our surplus agri- cultural and manufactured products. The brief trial given this legislation am ply justifies a further experiment and additional discretionary power in the making of commercial treaties, the end in view always to be the opening up of new markets for the products of other lands that we need and can- not produce ourselves, and which do not involve any loss of labor to our own people, but tend to increase their employment. The depression of the past four years has fallen with especial severity upon the great body of toilers of the country, and upon none more than the holders of small farms. Agriculture has languished and labor suffered. The revival of manufacturing will be a re- lief to both. No portion of our population is more devoted to the institutions of free government, nor more loyal in their support, while none bears more cheerfully or fully its proper share in the maintenance of the Government, or is better entitled to its wise and lib- eral care and protection. Legislation, helpful to pro- ducers, is beneficial to all. The depressed condition of industry on the farm and in the mine and factory has lessened the ability of the people to meet the demands upon them, and they rightfully expect that not only a system of re- 436 McKINLEY'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS venue shall be established that will secure the largest income with the least burden, but that every means will be taken to decrease, rather than increase, our public expenditures. Business conditions are not the most promising. It- will take time to restore the prosperity of former years. If we cannot promptly attain it, we can resolutely turn our faces in that direction and aid its return by friendly legislation. However troublesome the situation may appear, Congress will not, I am sure, be found lacking in di- sposition or ability to relieve it, as far as legislation can do so. The restoration of confidence and the revival of business, which men of all parties so much desire, de- pend more largely upon the prompt, energetic, and intelligent action of Congress than upon any other single agency affecting the situation. It is inspiring, too, to remember that no great em- ergency in the 108 years of our eventful national life has ever arisen that has not been met with wisdom and courage by the American people, with fidelity to their best interests and highest destiny, and to the honor of the American name. Those years of glorious history have exalted man- kind and advanced the cause of freedom throughout the world and immeasurably strengthened the pre- cious, free institutions which we enjoy. The people love and will sustain these institutions. The great essential to our happiness and prosperity McKINLEY'S IXAUGUBAL ADDRESS 437 is that we adhere to the principles upon which the Government was established and insist upon their faithful observance. Equality of rights must pre- vail and our laws be always and everywhere respected and obeyed. We may have failed in the discharge of our full duty as citizens of the great Republic, but it is con- soling and encouraging to realize that free speech, a free press, free thought, free schools, the free and un- molested right of religious liberty and worship, and free and fair elections are dearer and more universally enjoyed to-day than ever before. These guarantees must be sacredly preserved and wisely strengthened. The constituted authorities must be cheerfully and vigorously upheld. Lynching must not be tolerated in a great and civilized country like the United States ; Courts not mobs must execute the penalty of the law. The preservation of public order, the right of dis- cussion, the integrity of courts, and the orderly ad- ministration of justice must continue forever the rock of safety upon which our Government securely rests. One of the lessons taught by the late election, which all can rejoice in, is that the citizens of the United States are both law-respecting and law-abiding people, not easily swerved from the path of patriotism and honor. This is in entire accord with the genius of our institutions, and but emphasizes the advantages of inculcating even a greater love for law and order in the future. 438 McKINLEY'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS Immunity should be granted to none who violates the laws, whether individuals, corporations, or com- munities ; and as the Constitution imposes upon the President the duty of both its own execution and of the statutes enacted in pursuance of its provisions, I shall endeavor carefully to carry them into effect. The declaration of the party now restored to power has been in the past that of " opposition to all com- binations of capital organized in trusts, or otherwise, to control arbitrarily the condition of trade among our citizens," and it lias supported " such legislation as will prevent the execution of all schemes to oppress the people by undue charges on their supplies or by unjust rates for the transportation of their products to market." This purpose will be steadily pursued, both by the enforcement of the laws now in existence and the re- commendation and support of such new statutes as may be necessary to carry it into effect. Our naturalization and immigration laws should be further improved to the constant promotion of a safer, a better, arid a higher citizenship. A grave peril to the Republic would be a citizenship, too ignorant to understand or too vicious to appreciate the great value and beneficence of our institutions and laws, and against all who come here to make war upon them our gates must be promptly and tightly closed. Nor must we be unmindful of the need of improve- ment among our own citizens, but with the zeal of our forefathers encourage the spread of knowledge 32 vs INAUGURAL AJ 439 and free institutions. Illiteracy must be banished from the land, if we shall attain that high destiny as the foremost of the enlightened nations of the world, which, under Providence, we ought to achieve. Reforms in the civil service must go on. But the changes should be real and genuine, not perfunctory, or promoted by a zeal in behalf of any party, simply because it happens to be in power. As a member of Congress I voted and spoke in favor of the present law, and I shall attempt its en- forcement in the spirit in which it was enacted. The purpose in view was to secure the most efficient service of the best men, who would accept appoint- ment under the Government, retaining faithful and devoted public servants in' office, but shielding none under the authority of any rule or custom, who are inefficient, incompetent; or unworthy. The best in- terests of the country demand this, and the people heartily approve the law wherever and whenever it has been thus administered. Congress should give prompt attention to the re- storation of our American merchant marine, once the pride of the seas in all the great ocean highways of commerce. To my mind few more important subjects so im- peratively demand its intelligent consideration. The United States has progressed with marvellous rapidity in every field of enterprise and endeavor until we have become foremost in nearly all the great lines of inland trade, commerce, and industry. 440 McKINLEY'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS Yet, while this is true, our American merchant marine has been steadily declining until it is now lower both in the percentage of tonnage and the num- ber of vessels employed than it was prior to the Civil War. Commendable progress has been made of late years in the upbuilding of the American navy, but we must supplement those efforts by providing as a proper con- sort for it a merchant marine amply sufficient for our own carrying trade to foreign countries. The ques- tion is one that appeals both to our business neces- sities and the patriotic aspirations of a great people. It has been the policy of the United Stat.es since the foundation of the Government, to cultivate rela- tions of peace and amity with all the nations of the world, and this accords with my conception of our duty now. We have cherished the policy of non-interference with the affairs of foreign Governments, wisely in- augurated by Washington, keeping ourselves free from entaglement either as allies or foes, content to leave undisturbed with them the settlement of their own domestic concerns. It will be our aim to pursue a firm and dignified foreign policy, which shall be just, impartial, ever watchful of our national honor, and always insisting upon the enforcement of the lawful rights of Ameri- can citizens everywhere. We want no wars of conquest ; we must avoid the temptation of territorial aggression. War should McKIXLEY'S IXAUGURAL ADDRESS 441 never be entered upon until every agency of peace has failed; peace is preferable to war in almost every contingency. Arbitration is the true method of settlement of in- ternational, as well as local or individual differences. It was recognized as the best means of adjustment of differences between employers and employees by the Forty-ninth Congress, in 1886, and its application was extended to our diplomatic relations by the unanimous concurrence of the Senate and House of the Fifty-first Congress in 1890. The latter resolution was accepted as the basis of negotiations with us by the British House of Com- mons, in 1893, and upon our invitation a treaty of arbitration between the United States and Great Britain was signed at Washington and transmitted to the Senate for its ratification in January last. Since this treaty is clearly the result of our own initiative ; since it has been recognized as the leading feature of our foreign policy throughout our entire national history the adjustment of difficulties by judicial methods rather than force of arms and since it presents to the world the glorious example of reason and peace, not passion and war, controlling the relations between two of the greatest nations of the world, an example certain to be followed by others, I respectfully urge the early action of the Senate thereon, not merely as a matter of policy but as a duty to mankind. The importance and moral influence of the ratifi- 442 McKINLEY'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS cation of such a treaty can hardly be overestimated in the cause of advancing civilization. It may well engage the best thought of the statesmen and people of every country, and I cannot but consider it fortu- nate that it was reserved to the United States to have the leadership in so grand a work. It has been the uniform practice of each President to avoid, as far as possible, the convening of Congress in extraordinary session. It is an example which, under ordinary circumstances, and in the absence of a public necessity, is to be commended. But a failure to convene the representatives of the people in Congress in extra session when it involves neglect of a public duty places the responsibility of such neglect upon the Executive himself. The condition of the public Treasury, as has been indicated, demands the immediate consideration of Congress. It alone has the power to provide revenues for the Government. Not to convene it under such circum- stances I can view in no other sense than the neglect of a plain duty. I do not sympathize with the sentiment that Con- gress in session is dangerous to our general business interests. Its members are the agents of the people, and their presence at the seat of government in the execution of the sovereign will should not operate as an injury, but a benefit. There could be no better time to put the Govern- ment upon a sound financial and economic basis than McKINLEY'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS 443 now. The people have only recently voted that this should be done, and nothing is more binding upon the agents of their will than the obligation of imme- diate action. It has always seemed to me that the postponement of the meeting of Congress until more than a year after it has been chosen deprived Congress too often of the inspiration of the popular will, and the coun- try of the corresponding benefits. It is evident, therefore, that to postpone action in the presence of so great a necessity would be unwise on the part of the Executive because unjust to the interests of the people. Our actions now will be freer from mere partisan considerations than if the question of tariff revision was postponed until the regular session of Congress. We are nearly two years from a Congressional elec- tion, and politics cannot so greatly distract us as if such contest was immediately pending. We can ap- proach the problem calmly and patriotically without fearing its effect upon an early election. Our fellow-citizens who may disagree with us upon the character of this legislation prefer to have the question settled now, even against their preconceived views, and perhaps settled so reasonably and I trust and believe it will be as to insure greater perma- nence, than to have further uncertainty menacing the vast and varied business interests of the United States. Again, whatever action Congress may take will be 444 McKINLEY'S INAUGUEAL ADDEESS given a fair opportunity for trial before the people are called to pass judgment upon it; and this I consider a great essential to the rightful and lasting settle- ment of the question. In view of these considerations, I shall deem it my duty as President to convene Congress in extraordin- ary session on Monday, the 15th day of March. In conclusion, I congratulate the country upon the fraternal spirit of the people and the manifestations of good-will everywhere so apparent. The recent election not only most fortunately demonstrated the obliteration of sectional or geographical lines, but to some extent also the prejudices which for years have distracted our councils and marred our true greatness as a nation. The triumph of the people, whose verdict is car- ried into effect to-day, is not the triumph of one sec- tion, nor wholly of one party, but of all sections and all the people. The North and the South no longer divide on the old lines, but upon principles and policies ; and in this fact surely every lover of the country can find cause for true felicitation. Let us rejoice in and cul- tivate this spirit; it is ennobling, and will be both a gain and blessing to our beloved country. It will be my constant aim to do nothing, and per- mit nothing to be done, that will arrest or disturb this growing sentiment of unity and co-operation, this revival of esteem and affiliation which now animates so many thousands in both the old antagonistic sec- McKINLEY'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS ' ir> tions, but I shall cheerfully do everything possible to promote and increase it. Let me again repeat the words of the oath admin- istered by the Chief Justice, which, in their respec- tive spheres, so far as applicable, I would have all my countrymen observe : " I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitu- tion of the United States." This is the obligation I have reverently taken be- fore the Lord Most High. To keep it will be my single purpose ; my constant prayer and I shall confidently rely upon the forbearance and assistance of all the people in the discharge of my solemn re- sponsibilities. CHAPTER XXI. THE PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION. President McKinley's Administration endorsed by his unanimous nomi- nation for a Second TermGovernor Roosevelt the choice for Vice-President. McKINLEY and Roosevelt were nominated at Philadelphia for President and Vice- President respectively, not in a stampede, but in a formal manner, showing that each was the deliberate choice of the Convention. No other candidate than McKinley was considered for President. No other candidate than Roosevelt was considered for Vice-President. McKinley got all the 926 votes in the Convention. Roosevelt got all but one. His was the one vote not cast. To the end he remained sincere in his belief that somebody else ought to be nominated, and he carried home with him the satisfying knowledge that he was the only anti-Roosevelt delegate in the Convention. The concluding session of the Convention took on in a supreme measure the character of a great Repub- 44G THE PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION. 417 lican jubilee. Every man, woman and child stood up when McKinley was placed in nomination by the dashing Foraker, of Ohio, and the standards of all the States traveled to the stage, where they were grouped. Mark Hanna led the cheering and waved a bunch of pampas grass tied to the end of a broomstick. The demonstration lasted nearly ten minutes. Governor Roosevelt's speech seconding McKinley's nomination was the signal for another demonstra- tion. The Governor made the best speech of the day. It was broad, thoughtful, patriotic and eloquent. He drove his knife deep into the Democracy, and when he concluded the leaders knew they had on the ticket the man to answer Bryan should the Demo- cratic champion tour the country from a rear plat- form. When all the speeches for McKinley had been made, Senator Lodge, the Chairman, ordered the roll of the States to be called for a ballot. There was no other candidate, but it had been determined to make the result formal and clinching. The chairman ^ of each State delegation arose and cast the solid vote of the State for McKinley, and he was declared nominated. The nomination of Governor Roosevelt for Vice- President was made amid scenes of great enthusiasm. The Governor was the one popular idol in the Con- vention. He was placed in nomination by Iowa. Colonel "Lafe" Young, an Iowa editor, who was 448 THE PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION. in Cuba as a war correspondent, made the speech. The nomination was seconded by Murray, of -Massa- chusetts, Governor Mount, of Indiana, and Chauncey M. Depew, of New York. This, briefly, is the story of the great Convention of Republicans in Philadelphia, and does not tell in detail of the enormous enthusiasm when the Presi- dential and Vice-Presidential candidates were unani- mously chosen by their party, nor of the bands and the flags, the fair women and brave men gathered together to witness and be parties to an event historic, a period followed by new sentences to be written in gold to the honor and glory of the United States. It was a sight never to be forgotten. The great hall was crowded to its full capacity, and though there was not the uncertainty that makes nomina- tions largely like races, spectacular and exciting, yet th6re was something better than chance, the cer- tainty that two great men were to be nominated by their party for the two most distinguished offices in the gift of " We, the people of the United States." The people were there in great numbers ready to voice their approval of what was certain, and they had not lost their enthusiasm because there was to be no fight, for they were there to hail the victors of fights already won in peace and war. There could have been nothing more inspiring than these delegates with the names of their glorious States above them, stars in the firmament of the federation,, THE PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION. 449 and the other representatives of a representative government, the crowds in the galleries, those who chose the choosers and those who were to choose, and all of one mind. It was splendidly American and unusually American, for in this country of free speech and free thought we are so apt to differ that this great gathering, eager and ready to pronounce its unanimity of thought, was there awaiting the proceedings of the Convention. The Chairman does not have to rap twice for order when there is perfect silence, the stillness of those who are eager to cheer for their champion but are orderly that they may hear the clear words of his nomination. The entire hall catches the Chair- man's words : " The next business before the Con- vention is the nomination of candidates for President, and the Secretaiy will call the roll of States." "Alabama," reads the stout-lunged Secretaiy. "Alabama gives way to Ohio," replies the chair- man of the delegation. "Alabama gives way to Ohio and the Chair recog- nizes Senator Foraker, of Ohio," repeats Senator Lodge, giving each word due emphasis. Now a mighty cheer shakes the house as the white-haired orator of the Buckeye State comes up the aisle. Delegates are shouting and throwing up their hats. Two or three are waving flags, hundreds are shaking red, white and blue plumes that have appeared from somewhere. It is but the beginning. There is a lull at last, and the Senator begins his brilliant speech. 450 THE PHILADELPPIIA CONVENTION. It is cleverly prepared, punctuated with dramatic bits that serve to uncork the enthusiasm. He men- tions the name of Blaine that name that has always been one to conjure with and the house is in an uproar. SENATOR FORAKEE'S SPEECH. "Alabama yields to Ohio, and I thank Alabama for that accommodation. Alabama has so yielded, however, by reason of the fact that would seem im- portant to make the duty that has been assigned to me superfluous, for Alabama has yielded because of the fact that our candidate for the Presidency has in fact been already nominated. He was nominated by the distinguished Senator from Colorado when he assumed the duties of Temporary Chairman. He was nominated again yesterday by the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts when he took the office of Permanent Chairman, and he was nominated for a third time when the Senator from Indiana yesterday read us the platform, and not only has he been thus nominated by this Convention but he has also been nominated by the whole American people. From one end of this land to the other, in every mind, only one and the same man is thought of for the honor which we are now about to confer, and that man is the first choice of every other man who wishes Republican success next November. [Applause.] Oh this account it is not necessary for me or any one else to speak for him here or elsewhere. He has THE PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION. 451 already spoken for himself and to all the world. He has a record replete with brilliant achievements [applause], a record that speaks at once both his performances and is his highest eulogy. It compre- hends both peace and war, and constitutes the most striking illustration possible of triumphant and inspiriting fidelity and success in the discharge of public duty. " Four years ago the American people confided to him their highest and most sacred trust. Behold with what results ! He found the industries of this countiy paralyzed and prostrated; he quickened them with a new life that has brought to the American people a prosperity unprecedented in all their history. He found the labor of this country everywhere idle ; he has given it everywhere employ- ment. He found it everywhere in despair; he has made it everywhere prosperous and buoyant with hope. He found the mills and shops and factories and mines everywhere closed ; they are now every- where open. [Applause.] " And while we here deliberate, they are sejding their surplus products in commercial conquest to the very ends of the earth. Under his wise guidance, our financial standard has been firmly planted high above and beyond assault and the wild cry of 16 to I so full of terror and long hair in 1896, has been put to everlasting sleep alongside of the lost cause, and other cherished Democratic heresies, in the cata- combs of American politics. [Applause.] With a 452 THE PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION. diplomacy never excelled and rarely equaled, he has overcome what at times seemed to be insur- mountable difficulties and has not only opened to us the door of China but he has advanced our interests in every land. " We are not surprised by this, for we anticipated it all. When we nominated him at St. Louis four years ago, we knew he was wise, we knew he was brave, we knew he was patient, we knew he would be faithful and devoted, and we knew that the greatest possible triumphs of peace would be his; but we then little knew that he would be called upon to encounter also the trials of war! That unusual emergency came. It came unexpectedly as wars generally come. It came in spite of all he could 'honorably do to avert it. It came to find the country unprepared for it, but it found him equal to all its extraordinary requirements. [Applause.] "And it is no exaggeration to say that in all American history there is no chapter more brilliant than that which chronicles, with him as our com- mander-in-chief, our victory on land and sea. [Ap- plause.] In 100 days we drove Spain from the western hemisphere, girded the earth with our acquisition and filled the world with the splendor of our power. [Applause.] The American name has a new and greater significance now. Our flag has a Dew glory. It not only symbolizes human liberty and political equality at home, but it means freedom and independence for the long-suffering patriots of THE PHILADELPHIA CONVEXTION. 453 Cuba, and complete protection, education and enlight- enment, and ultimate local self-government and the enjoyment of all the blessings of liberty to the mill- ions of Porto Rico and the Philippines. "What we have so gloriously done for ourselves, we propose most generously to do for them. [Applause.] We have so declared in the platform that we have adopted. " A fitting place it is for the party to make such a declaration. Here in this magnificent city of Phila- delphia, where the evidences so abound of the rich blessings the Republican party has brought to the American people; here at the birthplace of the Nation, where our own Declaration of Independence was adopted and our Constitution formed; where Washington and Jefferson and Hancock and John o Adams and their illustrious associates wrought their immortal work ; here where center so many historic memories that stir the blood and flush the cheek and excite the sentiments of human liberty and patriot- ism, is indeed a most fitting place for the party of Lincoln and Grant and Garfield and Elaine. [Ap- plause.] " The party of union and liberty for all men for- mally dedicates itself to this great duty. We are now in the midst of its discharge. We could not turn back if we would, and we would not if we could. [Applause.] We are on trial before the world and must triumphantly meet our responsibili- ties or ignominiously fail in the presence of mankind. 454 THE PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION. These responsibilities speak to this Convention here and now, and command us that we choose to be our candidate and the next President which is one and the same thing- the best fitted man for the discharge of this great duty in all the Republic. [Applause.] " On that point there is no difference of opinion. No man in all the Nation is so well qualified for this trust as the great leader under whom the work has been so far conducted. He has the head, he has the heart, he has the special knowledge and the special experience that qualify him beyond all others. And he has also the stainless reputation and character and has led the blameless life that endear him to his countrymen and give to him the confidence, the respect, the admiration, the love and the affection of the whole American people. [Applause.] He is an ideal man, representing the highest type of American citizenship, an ideal candidate and an ideal Presi- dent. With our banner in his hands it will be car- ried to triumphant victory in November next. [Applause.] " In the name of all these considerations, not alone on behalf of his beloved State of Ohio, but on behalf r of every other state and territory here represented, and in the name of all Republicans everywhere throughout our jurisdiction, I nominate to be our next candidate for the Presidency, William McKinley." The safety valve is off. A cheer starts and grows to a roar by leaps and bounds. Delegates jump to their feet. A sea of flags, plumes, umbrellas and THE PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION. 455 hats are waving in air. Hanna, all smiles, rashes to the front of the stage. " Get up! Get up !" he calls, waving his hands. But they were all up before he had spoken, shout- ing, cheering, singing, praising at the expense of their throats their President now and to be ao-ain o elected. The band strikes up " Glory ! Glory ! Glory Hallelujah!" and pandemonium is loosed again. Dignified Senators stand on one another's backs and yell like schoolboys. As if by one thought a half-hundred hands grab the standards that bear the names of the different States and wave them in air. The standard-bearers now, with common purpose, rush to the center aisle and come marching up to the stage, where they range themselves in a spectacular pyramid as the storm still rages. The men with the standards file down again and start to march round the aisles. There is a great rush for the honor of leading the procession. Now Pennsylvania is in the lead. No ! Ohio has overtaken it and they are racing nip and tuck down the side aisle. The other States are after them pell mell, It is a regular foot race. But exhaustion compels the enthusiasm to stop and the tumult finally ends. CHAPTER XXII. SENATOR LODGE'S SPEECH. Permanent Chairman of the Republican Convention outlines the position of the Republican party A scholarly effort and a concise statement. THE Republican National Convention of 1900 was held in Philadelphia, beginning June 19 and continuing three days. The second day the report of the Committee on Permanent Organization was adopted, making Senator Lodge, of Massachusetts, the Permanent Chairman. Senator Lodge was at once escorted to the chair by Governor Roosevelt, of New York, and Governor Shaw, of Iowa. He was introduced and began his speech. Senator Lodge's speech was not only a scholarly effort, but it may be taken as a history of President McKinley's first administration and as defining the Republican position on the issues in. the campaign of 1900. SENATOR LODGE'S SPEECH. "One of the greatest honors that can fall to any American in public life is to be called to preside 456 SENATOR LODGE'S SPEECH. 4.17 over a Kepublican National Convention. How great the honor is you know, but cannot realize, nor can I express the gratitude which I feel to you for having conferred it upon me. I can only say to you, in the simplest phrase, that I thank you from the bottom of my heart. ' Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks, and yet I thank you.' " We meet again to nominate the next President of the United States. Four years have passed since we nominated the soldier and statesman who is now President, and who is soon to enter upon his second term. Since the civil war no Presidential term has been so crowded with great events as that which is now drawing to a close. They have been four memorable years. To Republicans they show a record of promises kept, of work done, of unforeseen questions met and answered. To the Democrats they have been generous in the exhibition of unful- filled predictions, in the ruin of their hopes of calamity and in futile opposition. to the forces of the times and the aspirations of the American people. I wish I could add that they had been equally instructive to our opponents, but while it is true that the Democrats, like the Bourbons, learn nothing, it is only too evident that the familiar comparison can- not be completed, for they forget a great deal which it Avouldrbe well for them to remember.- " In 1897 we took the Government and the country from the hands of President Cleveland. His party had abandoned him and were joined to their idols, 458 SENATOE LODGE'S SPEECH. of which he was no longer one. During the last years of his term we had presented to us the melan- choly spectacle of a President trying to govern with- out a party. The result was that his policies were in ruin, legislation was at a standstill and public affairs were in a perilous and incoherent condition. Party responsibilities had vanished, and with it all possibility of intelligent action demanded by the country at home and abroad. It was an interesting, but by no means singular display of Democratic unfitness for the practical work of government. To the political student it was instructive ; to the coun- try it was extremely painful ; to business, disastrous. " We replaced this political chaos with a President in thorough accord with his party, and the machinery of government began again to move smoothly and effectively. Thus we kept at once our promise of better and more efficient administration. In four months after the inauguration of President McKinley we had passed a tariff bill. For ten years the arti- ficial agitation in behalf of what was humorously called tariff reform, and of what was really free trade, had kept business in a foment and had brought a treasury deficit, paralyzed industries, depression panic and finally continuous bad times to a degree never before imagined. Would you know the result of our tariff legislation, look about you. Would you measure its success, recollect that it is no longer an issue, that our opponents, free traders as they are, do not dare to make it an issue, that there is not a State SENATOR LODGE'S SPEECH. 459 in the Union to-day which could be carried for free trade against protection. Never was a policy more fully justified by its works, never was a promise made by any party more absolutely fulfilled. "Dominant among the issues of four years ago was that of our monetary and financial system. The Republican party promised to uphold our credit, to protect our currency from revolution and to maintain the gold standard. We have done so. We have done more. We have been better than our promise. Failing to secure, after honest effort, any encourage- ment for international bimetallism, we have passed a law strengthening the gold standard and planting it firmer than ever in our financial system, improving our banking laws, buttressing our credit and refund- ing the public debt at 2 per cent, interest, the lowest rate in the world. It was a great work well done. The only argument the Democrats can advance to- day in their own behalf on the money question is that a Republican Senate, in the event of Democratic success, would not permit the repeal of a Republican law. This is a precious argument when looked at with considerate eyes and quite worthy of the intel- lects which produced it. Apply it generally. Upon this theory because we have defeated the soldiers of Spain and sunk her ships we can with safety dispense with the army and the navy which did the work. Take another example : There has been a fire in a great city ; it has been checked and extinguished ; therefore let us abolish the fire department and cease 4GO SENATOK LODGE'S SPEECH. to insure our homes. Distrust in our currency, the dread of change, the deadly fear of a debased stand- ard, were raging four years ago and business lay prostrate before them. Eepublican supremacy and Republican legislation have extinguished the fires of debt and fear, and business has risen triumphant from the ashes. Therefore abolish your fire depart- ment,, turn out the Republicans and put in power the incendiaries who lighted the flames and trust what remains of Republican control to avert fresh disaster. The proposition is its own refutation. The supremacy of the party that has saved the standard of sound money and guarded it by law is as necessary for its security and for the existence of honest wages and of business confidence now as it was in 1896. " The moment the Republican party passes from power and the party of free silver and fiat paper comes in, stable currency and the gold standard, the standard of the civilized world, are in imminent and deadly peril. Sound currency and a steady standard of value are to-day safe only in Republican hands. "But there were still other questions in 1896. We had already thwarted the efforts of the Cleve- land administration to throw the Hawaiian Islands back to their dethroned queen and to give England the foothold for her cables in the group. We then said that we would settle finally the Hawaiian ques- tion. We have done so. The traditional American policy has been carried out. The flag of the Union SENATOR LODGE'S SPEECH. 461 floats to-day over the cross-roads of the Pacific. We promised to deal with the Cuban question. Again comes the reply, we have done so. The long agony of the island is over; Cuba is free. But this great work brought with it events and issues which no man had foreseen, for which no party creed had pro- vided a policy. The crisis came, bringing war in its train. The Republican President and the Repub- lican Congress met the new trial in the old spirit. We fought the war with Spain. The result is his- tory known of all men. We have the perspective now of only a short two years, and yet how clear and how bright the great facts stand out, like moun- tain peaks against the sky, while the gathering darkness of a just oblivion is creeping fast over the low grounds where lie forgotten the trivial and unim- portant things, the criticisms and the fault-findings which seemed so huge when we still lingered among them. Here they are, these great facts: A war of a hundred days, with many victories and no defeats, with no prisoners taken from us and no advance stayed, with a triumphant outcome start- ling in its completeness and in its world-wide meaning. Was ever a war more justly entered upon, more successfully fought, more fully won, more thorough in its results ? Cuba is free. Spain has been driven from the western hemisphere. Fresh glory has come to our arms and crowned our flag. It was the work of the American people, but the Republican party was their instrument. Have 462 SENATOE LODGE'S SPEECH. we not the right to say that here, too, even as in the days of Lincoln, we have fought a good fight ; we have kept the faith ; we have finished the work. "War, however, is ever like the sword of Alex- ander. It cuts the knots. It is a great solvent and brings many results not to be foreseen. The world forces, unchained in war, perform in hours the work of years of quiet. Spain sued for peace. How was that peace to be made ? The answer to this great question had to be given by the President of the United States. We were victorious in Cuba, in Porto Rico, in the Philippines. Should we give those islands back to Spain ? Never, was the President's reply. Would any American wish that he had answered otherwise ? Should we hand them over to some other power? Never, was again the answer. Would our pride and self-respect as a Nation have submitted to any other reply ? Should we turn the islands, where we had destroyed all existing sov- ereignty, loose upon the world to be a prey to domestic anarchy and the helpless spoil of some other nation? Again the inevitable negative. Again the President answered as the Nation he rep- resented would have him answer. He boldly took the islands, took them knowing well the burden and responsibility, took them with a deep sense of duty to ourselves and others, guided by a just foresight as to our future in the East, and with an entire faith in the ability of the American people to grapple with the new task. When future Conventions point to SENATOR LODGE'S SPEECH. 4( ' :; the deeds by which the Republican party has made history, they will proclaim with special pride that under a Republican administration the war of 'i>s was fought and that the peace with Spain was the work of William McKinley. So much for the past. We are proud of it, but we do not expect to live upon it, for the Republican party is pre- eminently the party of action, and its march is ever forward. We are not so made that we can be con- tent to retreat or to mark time. ,The traditions of the early days of our party are sacred to us, and are hostages given to the American people that we will will not be unworthy of the great leaders who have gone. The deeds of yesterday are in their turn a pledge and a proof of what we promise we perform, and that the people who put faith in our declarations in 1896 were not deceived and may place the same trust in us in 1900. But our pathway has never lain among dead issues, nor have we won our victories and made history by delving in political graveyards. We are the party of to-day, with cheerful yesterdays and confident to-morrows. The living present is ours, the present of prosperity and activity in bn.>i- ness, of good wages and quick payments, of labor employed and capital invested ; of sunshine in the market-place and the stir of abounding life in the workshop and on the farm. It is with this that we have replaced the depression, the doubts, the dull business, the low wages, the idle labor, the frightened capital, the dark clouds which overhung industry 464 SENATOE LODGE'S SPEECH. and agriculture in 1896. This is what we would preserve, so far as sound government and wise legis- lation can do. This is what we brought to the country four years ago. This is what we offer now. Again we promise that the protective system shall be maintained and that our great industrial interests shall go on their way unshaken by the dire fear of tariff agitation and of changing duties. Again we declare that we will guard the national credit, up- hold a sound currency based on gold, and keep the wages of the workingman and the enterprise of the man of business free from that most deadly of all evils, a fluctuating standard of value. The deficit which made this great country in a time of profound peace a borrower of money to meet its current ex- penses has been replaced by abundant revenue, bring- ing a surplus, due alike to prosperity and to wise legislation, so ample that we can now safely promise a large reduction of taxation without imperiling our credit or risking a resort to loans. "We are prepared to take steps to revive and build up our merchant marine and thus put into American pockets the money paid for carrying American freights. Out of the abundant resources which our financial legislation has brought us we will build - the Isthmian canal, and lay the cables which will help to turn the current of eastern trade to the Golden Gate. We are on good terms with all nations, and mean to remain so, while we promise to insure our peace and safety by maintaining the Mon- SENATOR LODGE'S SPEECH. K;:> roe doctrine, by ample coast defenses and by building up a navy which no one can challenge with impunity. " The new problems brought by the war we face with confidence in ourselves and a still deeper confi- dence in the American people, who will deal justly and rightly with the islands which have come into their charge. The outcry against our new possessions is as empty as the cant about militarism and 'imperi- alism ' is devoid of sense and meaning. Regard for a moment those who are loudest in shrieking: that the o American people are about to enter upon a career of oppression and that the Republic is in danger. Have they been in the past the guards of freedom? Is safety for liberty now to be found most surely in the party which was the defender of domestic slav- ery ? Is true freedom to be secured by the ascend- ancy of the party which beneath our very eyes seeks to establish through infamous laws the despotic rule of a small and unscrupulous band of usurpers in Kentucky who trampled there, not upon the rights of the black men only, but of the whites, and which seeks to extend the same system to North Carolina and Missouri ? Has it suddenly come to pass that the Democratic party which to-day aims whenever it acquires power to continue in office by crushing out honest elections and popular rule; has it, indeed, come to pass, I say, that that party is the chosen pro- tector of liberty? If it were so, the outlook would be black indeed. No. The party of Lincoln may be best trusted now, as in the past, to be true even 466 SENATOR LODGE'S SPEECH. as lie was true, to the rights of man and to human freedom, whether within the borders of the United States or in the islands which have come beneath our flag. The liberators may be trusted to watch over the liberated. We who freed Cuba will keep the pledge we made to her, and will guide her along the road to independence and stable government until she is ready to settle her own future by the free expression of her people's will. We will be faithful to the trust imposed upon us, and if among those to whom this great work is confided in Cuba, or elsewhere, wrong-doers shall be found, men not only bad in morals, but dead to their duty as Amer- icans and false to the honor of our name, we will punish these basest of criminals to the extent of the law. " For the islands of Hawaii and Porto Rico the political problem has been solved and by Repub- lican legislation have been given self-government and are peaceful and prosperous under the rule of the United States. "In the Philippines we were met by rebellion, fomented by a self-seeking adventurer and usurper. The duty of the President was to repress that rebellion, to see that the authority of the United States as rightfully and righteous in Manila as in Philadelphia was acknowledged and obeyed. That harsh and painful duty President McKinley has per- formed firmly and justly, eager to resort to gentle measures whenever possible until yielding when SENATOR LODGE'S SPEECH. 467 treachery and violence made force necessary. Unlike the opponents of expansion, we do not regard the soldiers of Otis, Lawton and MacArthur as 'an enemy's camp.' In our eyes they are the soldiers of the United States; they are our army, and we believe in them and will sustain them. Even now the Democrats are planning, if they get control of the House, to cut off appropriations for the army and thus compel the withdrawal of our troops from the Philippines. " The result would be to force the retirement of such soldiers as would remain in Manila, and their retreat would be the signal for the massacre and plunder of the great body of peaceful inhabitants of the islands who have trusted to us to protect and guard them. Such an event would be an infamy. Is the Government, is the House, to be given over to a party capable of such a policy ? "Shall they not rather be intrusted to the party which will sustain the army and suppress the brigands and guerrillas who, under pretense of war, are now adding so freely to the list of crimes com- mitted in the name of liberty by usurpers and pre- tenders, and who, buoyed up by Democratic promises, keep up a highwayman's warfare in hope of Demo- cratic success in November ? It is for the American people to decide this question. Our position is plain. The restoration of peace and order now so nearly reached in the Philippines shall be completed. Civil government shall be established and the people 468 SENATOR LODGE'S SPEECH. advanced as rapidly as possible along the road to entire freedom and to self-government under our flag. We will not abandon our task. We will neither surrender nor retreat. We will not write failure across this page of our history. We will do our duty, our full duty, to the people of the Philippines and strive by every means to give them freedom, contentment and prosperity. We have no belief in the old slaveholders' doctrine that the Constitution of its own force marches into every newly acquired ter- ritory, and this doctrine, which we cast out in 1860, we still reject. We do not mean that the Philip- pines shall come without a tariff system or become part of our body politic. We do not mean that they shall, under our teaching, learn to govern themselves and remain under our flag with the largest possible measure of home rule. We make no hypocritical pretenses of being interested in the Philippines solely on account of others. While we regard the welfare of those people as a sacred trust, we regard the wel- fare of the American people first. We see our duty to ourselves as well as to others. We believe in trade expansion. " By every legitimate means within the province of government and legislation we mean to stimulate the expansion of our trade and to open new markets. Greatest of all markets is China. Our trade there is growing by leaps and bounds. Manila, the prize of war, gives us inestimable advantages in develop- ing that trade. It is the corner-stone of our Eastern SENATOR LODGE'S SPEECH. 4C9 policy, and the brilliant diplomacy of John Hay in securing from all nations a guarantee of our treaty rights and the open door in China rests upon it. We ask the American people whether they will throw away these new markets and widening oppor- tunities for trade and commerce by putting in power the Democratic party, which seeks under cover of a newly discovered affection for the rights of man to give up these islands of the East and make Dewey's victory fruitless? The choice lies between this Democratic policy of retreat and the Republican policy which would hold the islands, give them free- dom and prosperity and enlarge those great oppor- tunities for ourselves and our posterity. The Demo- cratic attitude toward the Philippines rests wholly upon the proposition that the American people have neither the capacity nor the honesty to deal rightly with these islands. They assume that we shall fail. They fall down and worship a Chinese half-breed whose name they had never heard three years ago, and they slander and cry down and doubt the honor of American soldiers and sailors, of admirals and generals and public men who have gone in and out before us during an entire lifetime. We are true to our own. We have no distrust of the honor, the humanity, the capacity of the American people. To feel or do otherwise is to doubt ourselves, our Gov- ernment and our civilization. We take issues with the Democrats, who would cast off the Philippines because the American people cannot be trusted with 470 SENATOR LODGE'S SPEECH. them, and we declare that the American people can be trusted to deal justly, wisely and generously with these distant islands and will lift them up to a higher prosperity, a broader freedom and a nobler civiliza- tion than they have ever known. We have not failed elsewhere. We shall not fail here. " Those are the questions we present to the Amer. lean people in regard to the Philippines. Do they want such a humiliating change there as Democratic victory would bring? Do they want an even more radical change at home? Suppose the candidate of the Democrats, the Populists, the foes of expansion, the dissatisfied and the envious should come into power, what kind of an administration would be given us? What would his cabinet be ? Think what an elec- tric spark of confidence would run through every business interest in the country when such a cabinet was announced as we can readily imagine he would make. More important still, we ask the American people whether they will put in the White House the hero of uncounted platforms, the prodigal spend- thrift of words, the champion of free silver, the opponent of expansion, the assailant of the courts; or whether they will retain in the Presidency the Union soldier, the leader of the House of Repre- sentatives, the trained statesman who has borne vic- toriously the heavy burdens of the last four years; the champion of protection and solid money; the fearless supporter of law and order wherever the flag floats? SENATOR LODGE'S SPEECH. 471 " Now, at the dawii of a new century, with new policies and new opportunities opening before us in the bright sunshine of prosperity, we again ask the American people to intrust us with their future. We have profound faith in the people. We do not distrust their capacity of meeting the new responsi- bilities, even as they met the old, and we shall await with confidence, under the leadership of William McKinley, the verdict of November." CHAPTER XXIII. REPUBLICAN PLATFOEM OF 1900. Document of remarkable scope and certainty Defines the party's position on every issue Adopted as read. THIS platform was reported and read by the Hon. Chas. W. Fairbanks, Senator of the United States from Indiana. It is a docu- ment of remarkable scope and certainty, and if it needs interpretation it must be construed by the record in peace and war of the first McKinley administration. "The Republicans of the United States, through chosen representatives met in National Convention, looking back upon an unsurpassed record of achieve- ment and looking forward into a great field of duty and opportunity, and appealing to the judgment of their countrymen, make these declarations: " The expectation in which the American people, turning from the Democratic party, intrusted power four years ago to a Republican chief magistrate and a Republican Congress, has been met and satisfied. When the people then assembled at the polls after REPUBLICAN PLATFORM OF 1900. 473 a term of Democratic legislation and administration, business was dead, industry paralyzed and the na- tional credit disastrously impaired. The country's capital was hidden away and its labor distressed and unemployed. The Democrats had no other plan with which to improve the ruinous conditions which they had themselves produced than to coin silver at the ratio of 16 to 1. The Republican party, de- nouncing this plan as sure to produce conditions from which relief was sought, promised to restore prosperity by means of two legislative measures a protective tariff and a law making gold the standard of value. The people by great majorities issued to the Republican party a commission to enact these laws. This commission has been executed and the Republican promise is redeemed. Prosperity, more general and more abundant than we have ever known, has followed these enactments. There is no longer controversy as to the value of Government obligations. Every American dollar is a gold dollar or its assured equivalent, and American credit stands higher than that of any nation. Capital is fully em- ployed and everywhere labor is profitably occupied. " No single fact can more strikingly tell the story of what government means to the country than this that while during the whole period of 107 years from 1790 to 1897 there was an excess of exports over imports of only $383,989,497, there has been in the short three years of the present Republican ad- ministration an excess of exports over imports in the 474 KEPUBLICAN PLATFORM OF 1900. enormous sum of $1,483,537,954, and while the American people, sustained by this Republican legis- lation, have been achieving these splendid triumphs in their business and commerce, they have conducted and, in victory, concluded a war for liberty and human rights. " No thought of national aggrandizement tarnished the high power with which American standards were unfurled. It was a war unsought and patiently resisted, but when it came the American Govern- ment was ready. Its fleets were cleared for action. Its armies were in the field, and the quick and signal triumph of its forces on land and sea bore equal tribute to the courage of American sailors and soldiers and to the skill of Republican statesman- ship. To ten millions of the human race there was given ' a new birth of freedom,' and to the Amer- ican people a new and noble responsibility. "We indorse the administration of William Me- Kinley. Its acts have been established in wisdom and in patriotism, and at home and abroad it has distinctly elevated and extended the influence of the American nation. Walking untried paths and facing unforeseen responsibilities, President McKiuley has been in every situation the true American patriot and upright statesman, clear in vision, strong in judgment, firm in action, always inspiring and deserving the confidence of his countrymen. " In asking the American people to indorse this Republican record and to renew their commission to REPUBLICAN PLATFORM OF 1900. 475 the Kepublican party, we remind them of the fact that the menace to their prosperity has always resided in Democratic principles and no less in the general incapacity of the Democratic party to conduct pub- lic affairs. The prime essential of business prosperit v is public confidence in the good sense of the Govern- ment and in its ability to deal intelligently with the problem of administration and legislation. That confidence the Democratic party has never earned. It is hopelessly inadequate, and the country's pros- perity, when Democratic success at the polls is announced, halts and ceases in mere anticipation of Democratic blunders and failures. "We renew our allegiance to the principle of the gold standard and declare our confidence in the wisdom of the legislation of the Fifty-sixth Congress by which the parity of all our money and the sta- bility of our currency on a gold basis has been secured. "We recognize that interest rates are a O potent factor in production and business activity; and for the purpose of further equalizing and of further lowering the rates of interest, we favor such .monetary legislation as will enable the varying nee* Is of the season and of all sections to be promptly met /in order that trade may be evenly sustained, labor steadily employed and commerce enlarged. The volume of money in circulation was never so great per capita as it is to-day. We declare our steadfast opposition to the free and unlimited coin;* :vcr. No measure to that end could be considered which 476 BEPUBLICAN PLATFOKM OF 1900. was without the support of the leading commercial countries of the world. However firmly Republican legislation may seem to have secured the country against the peril of base and discredited currency the election of a Democratic President could not fail to impair the country's credit and to bring once more into question the intention of the American people to maintain, on the gold standard, the parity of their money circulation. The Democratic party must be convinced that the American people will never tol- erate the Chicago platform. " We recognize the necessity and propriety of the honest co-operation of capital to meet new business conditions and especially to extend our rapidly increasing foreign trade, but we condemn all con- spiracies and combinations intended to restrict busi- ness, to create monopolies, to limit production or to control prices, and favor such legislation as will effectually restrain and prevent all such abuses, pro- tect and promote competition and secure the rights of producers, laborers and all who are engaged in industry and commerce. " We renew our faith in the policy of protection to American labor. In that policy our industries have been established, diversified and maintained. By protecting the home market the competition has been stimulated and production cheapened. Opportunity to the inventive genius of our people has been secured, and wages in every department of labor maintained at high rates, higher now than ever REPUBLICAN PLATFORM OF 1900. 477 before, always distinguishing our working people in their better conditions of life than those of any competing country. Enjoying the blessings of Amer- ican common schools, secure in the right of self-gov- ernment and protected in the occupancy of their own markets, their constantly increasing knowledge and skill have enabled them finally to enter the markets of the world. We favor the associated policy of reciprocity, so directed to open our markets on favor- able terms for what we do not ourselves produce in return for free foreign markets. In the further in- terest of American workmen, we favor a more effect- ive restriction of the immigration of cheap labor f n ua foreign lands, the extension of opportunities of educa- tion for workingmen's children, the raising of the age limit for child labor, the protection of free labor as against contract convict labor, and an effective sys- tem of labor insurance. "Our present dependence upon foreign shipping for nine-tenths of our foreign carrying is a great loss to the industry of this country. It is also a serious danger to our trade, for its sudden withdrawal in the event of European war would seriously cripple our expanding foreign commerce. The national defense and naval efficiency of this country, moreover, supply a compelling reason for legislation which will enable us to recover our former place among the trade-carry- ing fleets of the world. " The nation owes a debt of profound gratitude to the soldiers and sailors who have fought its 478 REPUBLICAN PLATFORM OF 1900. battles, and it is the Government's duty to provide for the survivors and for the widows and orphans of those who have fallen in the country's wars. The pension laws, founded in this just sentiment, should be liberal, and should be liberally administered and preference should be given, wherever practicable, with respect to employment in the public service, to soldiers and sailors and to their widows and orphans. " We commend the policy of the Republican party in maintaining the efficiency of the civil service. The administration has acted wisely in its effort to secure for public service in Cuba, Porto Rico and Hawaii and the Philippine Islands only those whose fitness has been determined by training and experi- ence. We believe that employment in the public service in these territories should be confined as far as practicable to their inhabitants. " It was the plain purpose of the jif teenth amend- ment to the Constitution to prevent discrimination on account of race or color in regulating the elective franchise. Devices of State Governments, whether by statutory or constitutional enactment, to avoid the purpose of this amendment are revolutionary and should be condemned. "Public movements looking to a permanent im- provement of the roads and highways of the coun- try meet with our cordial approval, and we recom- mend this subject to the earnest consideration of the people and of the legislatures of the several States. REPUBLICAN PLATFORM OF 1900. 470 " We favor the extension of the rural free delivery service wherever its extension may be justified. " In further pursuance of the constant policy of the Republican party to provide free homes on the public domain, we recommend adequate national legis- lation to reclaim the arid lands of the United States, reserving control of the distribution of water for O irrigation to the respective States and Territories. " We favor home rule for and the early admission to statehood of the Territories of New Mexico, Ari- zona and Oklahoma. u The Dingley act amended to provide sufficient revenue for the conduct of the war has so well per- formed its work that it has been possible to reduce the war debt in the sum of $40,000,000. So ample are the Government's revenues and so great is the public confidence in the integrity of its obligations that its newly funded 2 per cent, bonds sell at a premium. The country is now justified in expecting, and it will be the policy of the Republican party to bring about, a reduction of the war taxes. "We favor the construction, ownership, control and protection of an Isthmian Canal by the Govern- ment of the United States. New markets are nec- essary for the increasing surplus of our farm products. Every effort should be made to open and obtain new markets, especially in the Orient, and the administration is warmly to be commended for its successful effort to commit all trading and colonizing nations to the policy of the open door in China. In 480 REPUBLICAN PLATFORM OF 1900. the interest of our expanding commerce, we recom- mend that Congress create a Department of Com- merce and Industries in the charge of a Secretary with a seat in the Cabinet. The United States con- sular system should be reorganized under the super- vision of this new department upon such a basis and tenure as will render it still more serviceable to the nation's increasing trade. "The American Government must protect the person and property of every citizen wherever they are wrongfully violated or placed in peril. "We congratulate the women of America upon their splendid record of public service in the Volun- teer Aid Association, and as nurses in camp and hos- pital during the recent campaigns of our armies in the East and West Indies, and we appreciate faithful co-operation in all works of education and industry. "President McKinley has conducted the foreign affairs of the United States with distinguished credit to the American people. In releasing us from the vexatious conditions of a European alliance for the government of Samoa, his course is especially to be commended. By securing to our undivided control the most important island of the Samoan group, and the best harbor in the southern Pacific, every Amer- ican interest has been safeguarded. "We approve the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands to the United States. " We commend the part taken by our Government in the peace conference at The Hague. We assert REPUBLICAN PLATFORM OF 1900. 481 our steadfast adherence to the policy announced in the Monroe doctrine. The provisions of The Hague convention were wisely regarded when President McKinley tendered his friendly offices in the interest of peace between Great Britain and the South Afri- can Republic. While the American Government must continue the policy prescribed by "Washington, affirmed by every succeeding President and imposed upon us by The Hague treaty, of non-intervention in European controversies, the American people ear- nestly hope that a way may soon be found, honorable alike to both contending parties, to terminate strife between them. " Accepting by the treaty of Paris the just respon- sibility of our victories in the Spanish war, the President and the Senate won the undoubted ap- proval of the American people. No other course was possible than to destroy Spain's sovereignty throughout the West Indies and in the Philippine Islands. That course created our responsibility before the world, and with the unorganized popula- tion whom our intervention had freed from Spain, to provide for the maintenance of law and order, and for the establishment of good government and for^ the performance of international obligations. Our authority could not be less than our responsibility, and wherever sovereign rights were extended it became the high duty of the Government to main- tain its authority, to put down armed insurrection and to confer the blessings of liberty and civilization 482 REPUBLICAN PLATFORM OF 1900. upon all the rescued peoples. The largest measure of self-government consistent with their welfare and our duties shall be secured to them by law. To Cuba independence and self-government were as- sured in the same voice by which war was declared and to the letter this pledge shall be performed. "The Republican party, upon its history and upon this declaration of its principles and policies, con- fidently invokes the considerate and approving judg- ment of the American people." CHAPTER XXIV. PRESIDENT MCKINLEY'S LATER Elected and Inaugurated President a Second Time Triumphal Tour Through the South and the West, ended by Mrs. McKinley'i Illness. THE Republican National Convention of 1900, held in Philadelphia from June 19 to 21, unanimously nominated President McKinley as the standard bearer of the party. The hearty action of the Convention was the grandest possible endorsement of the President's first administration. For the second place on the ticket Theodore Roosevelt of New York was nominated. The campaign that followed the nomination was valiantly fought because of the tactics em- ployed by the opposition. In spite of the heroic efforts of the Democratic party, led by Mr. Bryan, President McKinley carried nearly every northern and western state, receiving a larger popular majority than that of four years before. This 483 484 McKINLEY'S LATER DAYS. was a magnificent attestation of his popularity among the people. In a little pavilion midway of the main east door of the capitol and the heroic figure of Wash- ington which faces the great building, William McKinley, on the 4th of March, 1901, for the second time took the oath of office as President of the United States. As with uplifted hand he repeated the formal vow to support the consti- tution of the republic he looked into the face of Chief Justice Fuller, whose snowy locks and heavy black silk gown made him a statuesque figure in the ceremonial edifice. Grouped about the President just without the pavilion were the members of the cabinet, foreign diplomats, United States senators, representa- tives, governors and the distinguished statesmen of the period. The ceremony was performed quickly, however, and before the throng that surged toward the plaza could comprehend what was going on the President became his own suc- cessor and was reading his inaugural address. This was marked by a strong patriotic policy and was well received by the nation. The address comprised a reiteration of the policy of his first administration. A few weeks after the inauguration a tour by the President and his party was planned for the south and far west. As originally planned the McKIXLEY'S LATER DAYS. 485 President was to go from Washington to New- Orleans, stopping at several cities in the south on the way. Thence to Texas, making short visits at Dallas and Galveston, and possibly stopping at other small cities. The trip across western Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and southwestern California was to be hurried, the first important stopping place on the Pacific coast being Los Angeles. From Los Angeles the party was to go to San Francisco, there to remain several days participat- ing in the launching of the battle-ship Ohio and festivities which had been planned on an elaborate scale. On the north Pacific coast the President was to go to Portland, Seattle and Tacoma. After leaving Puget Sound he was to stop at one or two of the smaller cities in Washington, possibly in Idaho, and then proceed to Helena and Butte in Montana. Thence to the Yellowstone park, enter- ing it on the north and reentering his train on the south side of the park. The President had never been in the great na- tional park of the country and he was therefore to explore it as thoroughly as he could in two or three days. He was then to be whisked off to Salt Lake City, thence to Denver and Colorado Springs; thence to Topeka and Kansas City. Without making any stops of importance, his train was to be hurried to Duluth, where the President was to embark for a trip down the great lakes for Buffalo. 48G McKINLEY'S LATER DAYS. On the way down he was to stop for some hours at Detroit and at Cleveland, and arrive at Buffalo some time between the 10th and 15th of June, where he was to be the guest of the city and par- ticipate in the exercises at the Pan-American ex- position on President's day. The itinerary was begun in the spring as plan- ned, Mrs. McKinley accompanying the President. The President was heartily received throughout the South, gala days being held wherever he stopped. On reaching the Pacific coast Mrs. McKinley became seriously ill, and for some days her life was in danger. This ended the itinerary, and as soon as she could be safely moved the Presidential party returned home by special train. A rest at the family home in Canton so improved Mrs. McKinley's health that she was able to accom- pany the President to the Pan-American exposi- tion in September and be present on President's Day at the exposition. CHAPTER XXV. PRESIDENT MCKINLEY'S ASSASSINATION^ President's Visit to the Pan-American Exposition His Great Speech Shot by Anarchist Leon Czolgosz A Week in the Balance. PRESIDENT McKINLEY left Washington about the middle of August . He was worn out by the cares of state and through worry over Mrs. McKinley's health, and went to his home in Canton for a brief rest. There he spent much of his time out of doors, driving about the country, visiting his farm and walking, and soon regained his old-time strength and vigor. Mrs. McKinley also improved rapidly, and on Wednesday, Sept. 4, accompanied by his wife, the Misses Barber, and Miss Sarah Duncan, his nieces, he left Canton for Buffalo to attend the Pan-American Exposition. They arrived in Buf- falo the same evening and were taken at once to the north gate of the exposition grounds. There an immense crowd gathered to welcome the nation's Executive. The people shouted, can- 487 488 McKINLEY'S ASSASSINATION. nons boomed, whistles screeched, and everybody and everything seemed to vie in their expressions of joy over the arrival of the beloved President. A few minutes later the President, with Mrs. McKinley leaning on his arm, and surrounded by the Reception Committee, left the train and took carriages for a drive through the grounds. No ruler, either ancient or modern, ever received a more fervent welcome than did President McKinley on this occasion. The President acknowledged the cheerings and salutations of the crowds by bowing and raising his hat. Mrs. McKinley, who looked remarkably well after the tiresome jour- ney, smiled happily. It was a happy city and a happy President that night. About 9 o'clock the party was driven to the home of John G. Milburn, President of the Ex- position company, where it was to be entertained during the stay in Buffalo. The day following, Thursday, September 5, had been set aside on the Pan-American Exposition calendar in the President's honor. It was the red letter day in the exposition's history. All Buffalo and thousands from all parts of the United States turned out to celebrate. The President was re- ceived at the exposition with all the ceremonial honors, civil and military, due his office. At the entrance of the grounds he was met by detach- ments of the United States marines, the Seacoast McKINLEY'S ASSASSINATION. 489 Artillery, and the Sixty-fifth and Seventy-fourth New York Regiments. A President's salute of twenty-one guns was fired. The President was at once escorted to the stand erected in the esplanade. There was almost ab- solute quiet when President Milburn arose and introduced the President as follows: " Ladies and Gentlemen: The President." The great audience broke out with a mighty cheer, which continued as President McKinley arose, and it was some minutes before he was able to proceed. When quiet was restored he spoke as follows: President Milburn, Director General Buchanan, Commis- sioners, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am glad to be again in the city of Buffalo and exchange greetings with her people, to whose generous hospitality I am not a stranger and with whose good will I have been repeatedly and signally honored. Today I have additional satisfaction in meeting and giving welcome to the foreign representatives assembled here, whose presence and participation in this exposition have contributed in so marked a degree to its interest and success. To the commis- sioners of the Dominion of Canada and the British colonies, the French colonies, the Republics of Mexico and of Central and South America and the commissioners of Cuba and Porto Rico, who share with us in this undertaking, we give the hand of fellowship and felicitate with them upon the triumphs of art, science, education and manufacture which the old has bequeathed to the new century. Expositions are the time-keepers of progress. They record the world's advancement. They stimulate the energy, enterprise and intellect of the people and quicken human 490 McKINLEY'S ASSASSINATION. genius. They go into the home. They broaden and brighten the daily life of the people. Tuc-y open mighty storehouses of information to the student. Every exposition, great or small, has helped to some onward step. Comparison of ideas is always educational, and, as such, instructs the brain and hand of man. Friendly rivalry follows, which is the spur to indus* trial improvement, the inspiration to useful invention and to high endeavor in all departments of human activity. It exacts a study of the wants, comforts and even the whims of the people and recognizes the efficacy of high quality and low prices to win their favor. The quest for trade is an incentive to men of business to invent, improve and economize in the cost of production. Business life, whether among ourselves or with other people, is ever a sharp struggle for success. It will be none the less so in the future. Without competition we would be clinging to the clumsy and antiquated processes of farming and manufacture and the methods of business of long ago, and the twentieth would be no further advanced than the eighteenth century. The Pan-American Exposition has done its work thoi oughly, presenting in its exhibits evidences of the highest Bkill 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. It has not accomplished everything ; far from it. It has simply done its best, and without vanity or boast- fulness, and, recognizing the manifold achievements of others, it invites the friendly rivalry of all the powers in the peaceful pursuits of trade and commerce, and will cooperate with all in advancing the highest and best interests of humanity. The wisdom and energy of all the nations are none too great for the world's work. The success of art, science, industry and in- vention is an international asset and a common glory. After all, how near one to the other is every part of the McKINLEY'8 ASSASSINATION. 491 world! Modern inventions have brought into close relation widely separated peoples and made them better acquainted. Geographic and political divisions will continue to exist, but dis< ances have been effaced. Swift ships and fast trains are becoming cosmopolitan. They invade fields which a few years ago were impenetrable. The world's products are exchang- ed as never before, and with increasing transporation facilities comes increasing knowledge and trade. Prices are fixed with mathematical precision by supply and demand. The world's selling prices are regulated by market and crop reports. We travel greater distances in a shorter space of time and with more ease than was ever dreamed of by the fathers. Isolation is no longer (possible or desirable. The same important news is read, though iu different languages, the same day in all Christendom. The telegraph keeps us advised of what is occuring everywhere and the press foreshadows, with more or less accuracy, the plans and purposes of the na- tions. Market prices of products and of securities are hourly known in every commercial mart and the investments of the people extend beyond their own national boundaries into the remotest parts of the earth. Vast transactions are conduct- ed and international exchanges are made by the tick of the cable. Every event of interest is immediately bulletined. The quick gathering and transmission of news, like rapid tran- sit, are of recent origin and are only made possible by the genius of the inventor and the courage of the investor. It took a special messenger of the government, with every facility known at the time for rapid travel, nineteen days to go from the city of Washington to New Orleans with a mes- sage to General Jackson that the war with Euglaaid had ceast-d and a treaty of peace had been signed. How different now! "We reached General Miles in Porto Rico by cable and he was able through the military telegraph to stop his army on the firing line with the message that the United States and Spain 492 McKINLEY'S ASSASSINATION. had signed a protocol suspending hostilities. We knew almost instantly of the first shot fired at Santiago, and the subsequent surrender of the Spanish forces was known at Washington within less than an hour of its consummation. The first ship of Cervera's fleet had hardly emerged from that historic har- bor when the fact was flashed to our capital and the swift de- struction that followed was announced immediately through the wonderful medium of telegraphy. So accustomed are we to safe and easy communication with distant lands that its temporary interruption even in ordinary times results in loss and inconvenience. We shall never forget the days of anxious waiting and awful suspense when no information was permitted to be sent from Pekin, and the diplomatic representatives of the nations in China, cut off from all communication inside and outside of the walled capital, were surrounded by an angry and misguided mob that threatened their lives; nor the joy that thrilled the world when a single message from the government of the United States brought through our minister, the first news of the safety of the besieged diplomats. At the beginning of the nineteenth century there was not a mile of steam railroad on the globe. Now there are enough miles to make its circuit many times. Then there was not a mile of electric telegraph; now we have a vast mileage travers- ing all lands and all seas. God and man have linked the na- tions together. No nation can longer be indifferent to any other. And as we are brought more and more in touch with each other the less occasion is there for misunderstandings and the stronger the disposition, when we have differences, to adjust them in the court of arbitration, which is the noblest forum for the settlement of international disputes. My fellow citizens, trade statistics indicate that this country is in a state of unexampled prosperity. The figures are almost appalling. They show that we are utilizing our McKINLEY'S ASSASSINATION. fields and forests and mines and that we are furnishing profit- able employment to the millions of workingmen throughout the United States, bringing comfort and happiness to their homes and making it possible to lay by savings for old age and disability. That all the people are participating in this .great prosperity is seen in every American community and shown by the enormous and unprecedented deposits in our savings banks. Our duty is the care and security of these deposits, and their safe investment demands the highest integrity and the best business capacity of those in charge of these depositories of the people's earnings. Our capacity to produce 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 what we have. No other policy will get more. In these times of marvelous busi- ness energy and gain we ought to be looking to the future, strenghtening the weak places in our industrial and commercial systems, that we may be ready for any storm or strain. By sensible trade arrangements which will not interrupt our home production we shall extend the outlets for our in- creasing surplus. We must not repose in fancied security that we can forever sell everything and buy little or nothing. If such a thing were possible it would not be best for us or for those with whom we deal. We should take from our customers such of their products as we can use without harm to our in- dustries and labor. Reciprocity is the natural outgrowth of our wonderful industrial development under the domestic policy now firmly established. What we produce beyond our domestic consumption must have a vent abroad. The excess must be relieved through a foreign outlet and we should sell every- where we can and buy wherever the buying will enlarge our sales and productions and thereby make a greater demand for home labor. 194 McKINLEY'S ASSASSINATION. The period of exclusiveness is past. The expansion of our trade and commerce is the pressing problem. Commercial wars are unprofitable. A policy of good will and friendly trade relations will prevent reprisals. Reciprocity 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 steamers have already been put in com- mission between the Pacific 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 eastern 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 barely touched. Next in advantage to having the thing to sell is to have the conven- ience to carry it to the buyer. We must encourage 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 cannot be longer postponed. In the furtherance of these objects of national interest and concern you are performing an important part. This exposi- tion would have touched the heart of that American statesman whose mind was ever 'alert and thought ever constant for a McKINLEY 'S ASSASSINATION. 495 larger commerce and a truer fraternity of the republics of the new world. His broad American spirit is felt arid manifested here. He needs no identification to an assemblage of Ameri- cans anywhere, for the name of Elaine is inseparably associat- ed with the Pan-American movement which finds this practical and substantial expression and which we all hope will be firm- ly advanced by the Pan-American congress that assembles this autumn in the capital of Mexico. Upon the conclusion of his address a large num- ber of people broke through the lines around the stand and the President held an impromptu re- ception for fifteen minutes, shaking hands with thousands. The carriages were then brought to the steps of the stand and the President, accom- panied by the diplomatic corps and specially in- vited guests made a tour of the Exposition grounds. Mrs. McKinley left the stand at the conclusion of the speech-making and was taken to the Wo- man's Building, where she was entertained by the women managers. In the evening Mr. and Mrs. McKinley visited the Exposition grounds to view the illumination and fireworks. On the following day, Friday, September 6, President and Mrs. McKinley, escorted by Presi- dent Milburn, of the Exposition, and several dis- tinguished guests, visited Niagara falls. It was the second day of the President's visit and was to have been the last. The programme for the day 496 McKINLEY'S ASSASSINATION. included only the visit to the falls, a public recep- tion at the Temple of Music, a quiet dinner party and the start for Washington. A special train v carried the party to Niagara, and from the suspension bridge the President and his party viewed the mighty cataract for some time. Carriages were at hand and the party drove to the International Hotel, where lunch was served, and soon afterward, in high spirits, the guests re- entered the train and whirled back to Buffalo. Mrs. McKinley, tired by the day's outing, did not return to the Exposition grounds, but was driven to the Milburn residence. The President was driven direct to the Temple of Music, where the re- ception was to be held. A great throng was gath- ered in and around the building. On the eastern side of the building was a dais on which stood the great organ. During the wait for the President's appearance an organ recital was given, and the applause had scarcely died away when a ringing cheer from the outside announced the arrival of the President. A narrow lane was forced in the crowd and through it the President, leaning on the arm of President Milburn and followed by Secre- tary Cortelyou and half a dozen secret service operatives, passed quickly to the little platform and took his stand near the organ. On his right stood Mr. Milburn and on his left Secretary Cortelyou. Close at hand stood the se- McKINLEY'S ASSASSINATION. 497 cret service detectives forming the President's bodyguard. To this reception the general public had been invited. No man, woman, or child, no matter of what color, birth, or political belief, was refused admission. The President had been introduced to the great crowd which had thronged the Temple of Music, and all came forward in a line for a per- sonal greeting. Among those in line was Leon Czolgosz, whose right hand was wrapped in a handkerchief. Folded in the handkerchief was a thirty-two cali- ber revolver. So carefully was the weapon con- cealed, however, and so deftly had the handker- chief been arranged that no suspicions were aroused in the detective who stood close by the President to guard against any such emergency. The hand simply had the appearance of having been wrapped up to cover some sore or bruise. A little girl was led up by her father, and the President shook hands with her. As she passed along to the right the President looked after her smilingly and waved his hand in a pleasant adieu. Next in line came a boyish-featured man about twenty-six years old, preceded by a short Italian, who leaned backward against the bandaged hand of his follower. The officers who attended the President noted this man, their attention being first attracted by the Italian, whose dark, shaggy 498 McKINLEY'S ASSASSINATION. brows and black mustache caused the professional protectors to regard him with suspicion. The man with the bandaged hand and innocent face received no attention from the detective be- yond the mental observation that his right hand was apparently injured, and that he would present his left hand to the President. The Italian stood before the palm bower. He held the President's hand so long that the officers stepped forward to break the clasp and make room for the man with the bandaged hand, who extended the left member towards the Presi- dent's right. The President smiled and presented his right hand in a position to meet the left of the ap- proaching man. Hardly a foot of space intervened between the bodies of the two men. Before their hands met two pistol shots were fired, and the President turned slightly to the left and reeled. The tall, innocent-looking young man had fired through the bandage without removing any por- tion of the handkerchief. The first bullet struck the sternum in the Pres- ident's chest, deflected to the right, and traveled beneath the skin to a point directly beneath the right nipple. The second bullet penetrated the abdomen, pierced both walls of the stomach, and lodged in the back. Only a superficial wound was caused by the first bullet, and within five minutes McKINLEY'S ASSASSINATION. 499 after the physicians had reached the President's side it had been removed. The second bullet the fatal one was never found. On receiving the first shot President McKinley lifted himself on his toes with something of a gasp. His movement caused the second shot to enter just below the navel. With the second shot the President doubled slightly forward and then sank back. Detective Geary caught the President in his arms and President Milburn helped to support him. When the President fell into the arms of Detec- tive Geary he coolly asked: "Am I shot?" Geary unbottoned the President's vest, and, seeing blood, replied: "I fear you are, Mr. Presi- dent." It had ah 1 happened in an instant. Almost be- fore the noise of the second shot sounded Czolgosz was seized by S. R. Ireland, United States secret service man, who stood directly opposite the Presi- dent. Ireland hurled him to the floor, and as he fell a negro waiter, James B. Parker, who once worked in Chicago, leaped upon him. Soldiers of the United States artillery detailed at the recep- tion sprang upon them and he was surrounded by a squad of exposition police and secret service de- tectives. Meanwhile Ireland and the negro held the assassin, endeavoring to shield him from the attacks of the infuriated artillerymen and the blows of the policemen's clubs. 500 McKINLEY'S ASSASSINATION. Supported by Detective Geary and President Milburn, and surrounded by Secretary George B. Cortelyou and half a dozen exposition officials, the President was assisted to a chair, where he sank back with one hand holding his abdomen, the other fumbling at his breast. His eyes were open and he was clearly conscious of all that had trans- pired. He was suffering the most intense pain, but true to his noble nature his first thought was of others one. other in particular, his wife. He looked up into President Milburn's face and gasped: "Cortelyou." The President's secre- tary bent over him. "Cortelyou," said the Presi- dent, "my wife, be careful about her. Don't let her know." His next thought was of the cruel assassin who had struck him down. Moved by a paroxysm he writhed to the left, and then his eyes fell on the prostrate form of Czolgosz, lying on the floor bloody and helpless beneath the blows of the police, soldiers, and detectives. The President raised his right hand, red with his own blood, and placed it on the shoulder of his secretary. "Let no one hurt him," he gasped, and sank back in his chair, while the guards carried Czolgosz out of his sight. The ambulance from the exposition hospital was summoned immediately, and the President, still conscious, sank upon the stretcher, and in McKINLEY'S ASSASSINATION. 501 nine minutes after the shooting the President was waiting the arrival of surgeons, who had been summoned from all sections of the city and by special train from Niagara Falls. On the way to the hospital the President said to Mr. Milburn: "I am sorry to have been the cause of trouble to the exposition." Within ten minutes after he received his wounds, stricken with pain as he was, the President had given expression to three thoughts. First, and most natural, that the news should be kept from his invalid wife ; second, that the would-be assassin, worthless as his life was, should not be harmed ; and third, regret that the tragedy might hurt the exposition and interfere with the pleasure of others. Six doctors were at the President's side within thirty seconds after his arrival Dr. E. W. Lee of St. Louis, Dr. Storer of Chicago, Dr. Van Peyms of Buffalo, and Dr. Hall, Dr. Ellis, and Dr. Mann, Jr., of the exposition hospital staff. The nurses were equally prompt, for they had made ready for the task of the surgeons while the ambulance was coming from the Temple of Music. The President was stripped and placed on an operating table where the surgeons might see his wounds. The first assistance was rendered by Dr. Lee, who was the medical director of the Omaha exposition. The President recognized him 502 McKINLEY'S ASSASSINATION. and [said: "Doctor, do whatever is necessary." The hospital stewards were busy removing the President's apparel when Dr. Herman Mynter ar- rived. The surgeons consulted and hesitated about performing an operation. The President reassured them by expressing his confidence, but no decision was reached until Dr. Matthew D. Mann of the exposition hospital staff arrived. After another consultation Dr. Mann informed the President that an operation was necessary. "All right," replied the President. "Go ahead. Do whatever is proper." Dr. Mann performed the operation. His first assistant was Dr. Mynter. His second assistant was Dr. John Parmenter. His third assistant was Dr. Lee. Dr. Nelson W. Wilson noted the time of the operation and took notes. Dr. Eugene Wasdin of the Marine Hospital gave the anaes- thetic. Dr. Rixey, the President's personal phy- sician, arrived at the latter part of the operation and held the light. Dr. Eoswell Park, who had been summoned from Niagara Falls, arrived at the close of the operation. The operation lasted almost an hour. A cut about five inches long was made. It was found necessary to turn up the stomach of the Presi- dent in order to trace the course of the bullet. The bullet's opening in the front wall of the stom- ach was small, and it was carefully closed with McKINLEY'S ASSASSINATION. 503 sutures, after which a search was made for the hole in the back wall of the stomach. This hole, where the bullet left the stomach, was larger than that in the front wall of the stom- ach, in fact, it was a wound over an inch in diame- ter, jagged and ragged. It was sewed up in three layers. In turning up the stomach, an act performed by Dr. Mann with rare skill, the danger was that some of the contents of the stomach might go into the abdominal cavity, and cause peritonitis. It so happened that there was little in the President's stomach at the time of the operation. Moreover, subsequent developments showed that this feature of the operation was grandly successful and none of the contents of the stomach entered the abdomi- nal cavity. The anaesthetic administered was ether, and for two and a half hours the President was under its influence. He came out of the operation strong, with a good pulse and steady heart action. The operation over, arrangements were made to remove the President to the Milburn house before any reaction might set in. The shooting occurred shortly after 4 o'clock and at 7 :25 the ambulance backed up to the hospital door to remove the President. The people had been told previously that the operation was over and that the President was in a critical condition. They fell back to a 504 McKINLEY'S ASSASSINATION. respectful distance while the body was being placed in an ambulance. All heads were bare until the wagon drove out of sight. As sooji as the President had been removed from the Temple of Music to the hospital, Director General W. I. Buchanan started for the Milbum residence, where Mrs. McKinley was resting. He went to forestall any information that might reach her by telephone or otherwise. The Misses Barber and Miss Duncan, the President's nieces, and Mrs. Milburn were also at the house. Mr. Buchanan informed the nieces as gently as possible and con- sulted Mrs. Milburn as to the best course to pursue in telling Mrs. McKinley of the tragedy. It was decided that on her awakening from her nap Mr. Buchanan should see her, if, in the meantime Dr. Bixey had not arrived. Mrs. McKinley awoke at 5 :30 o'clock, and, feel- ing much rested, took up her crocheting. When it became dusk and her husband did not return she began to worry and made inquiries of the family as to the probable reason for his tardiness. By this time Dr. Rixey had arrived, and it was decided that he should break the news to her. As to just how he informed her of the mishap to her husband reports differ. However, she was informed by Dr. Eixey, the physician who has attended her for some time, who went to her and said simply: ''The Presi- dent has been hurt." McKINLEY'S ASSASSINATION. 505 " How was he hurt?" asked Mrs. McKinley. " Well, a man shot at him and one of the shots took effect, hut we do not think he is hadly hurt, and we think he will recover." Mrs. McKinley was excited, but she did not lose her self-control. She immediately asked to be told all the particulars. u Tell me all," she said. "Do not keep any- thing back. I will be brave." And she was brave throughout the long days and nights of worry. She asked to see her hus- band as soon as he was brought to the Milburn house, but when told that it would be injudicious she became reconciled. As soon as he began to mend she was allowed to see him every day for a short time. The President was taken to a large bed-room on the second floor. Everything had been quietly arranged for him before his arrival from the hos- pital. Every medical appliance was within easy reach, the professional nurses were in waiting, and quarters were arranged for the doctors. The President passed the first night after the shooting fairly comfortably. His temperature increased from 100 to 100.6 between 1 and 3 a. m., and fears were entertained that peritonitis might set in. The doctors chosen to care for the case, P. M. Eixey, M. B. Mann, Eoswell Park, H. Mynter, and Eugene Wasdin, were in attend- 506 McKINLEY'S ASSASSINATION. ance at the President's bedside all night, watching carefully each symptom. At 10 :40 p. m. the doctors issued this bulletin : u The President is rallying satisfactorily and is resting comfortably. Temperature, 100.4 ; pulse, 124; respiration, 24." At 1 :30 a. m. the bulletin read: " The Presi- dent is free from pain and resting well. Tempera- ture, 100.2; pulse, 120; respiration, 24." At 3:15 a. m. the bulletin read: "The Presi- dent continues to rest well. Temperature, 101.6 ; pulse, 110; respiration, 24. Saturday, the day following the shooting, was one of grave anxiety. The President, while hold- ing his own, was approaching, so the doctors said, a crisis. It was thought that Sunday would decide what effect the shots fired by Czolgosz would be. Dr. Eixey gave it as his opinion that the President would recover. The other physi- cians refused to commit themselves, saying that they could not make promises until further de- velopments. An X-ray apparatus was brought from Thomas A. Edison's laboratory with which it was intended to locate the bullet which lodged in the back. It was not used. On Sunday morning at 5 o'clock the physicians issued this bulletin : " The Presi- dent has passed a fairly good night. Pulse, 122; temperature, 102.4; respiration, 24." McKINLEY'S ASSASSINATION. 507 Sunday proved a rather uneventful day. The anticipated crisis did not materialize. The news was good throughout the day. The President's temperature on Sunday evening was a degree lower than it was [during the morning, the pulse was slower, and the respiration easier. Dr. Charles McBurney of New York, one of the most noted surgeons in the world, arrived during the day and held a consultation with the other doctors at 3 o'clock Sunday afternoon. Immediately following the consultation this bul- letin was issued: " The President, since the last bulletin (3 p. m.) has slept quietly, four hours altogether, since 9 o'clock. His condition is satis- factory to all the physicians present. Pulse, 128; temperature, 101; respiration, 28." The President improved so rapidly on Monday that his friends declared he would he able to attend the duties of his office within a month. The worst danger was regarded as past, peritonitis seemed no longer probable, and the only cause for fear was the possibility of a sinking spell. The bulletins throughout Monday were hopeful. One said the President had passed a somewhat restless night, sleeping fairly well; and another declared the President's condition was "becoming more and more satisfactory," and adding that " untoward incidents are less likely to occur." One ig*-.~' at 3 p. m. stated: "The President's 508 McKINLEY'S ASSASSINATION. condition steadily improves and he is comfortable, without pain or unfavorable symptoms. Bowel and kidney functions normally performed." The last bulletin for the day, issued at 9:30 p.m., said: "The President's condition continues favor- able. Pulse, 112; temperature, 101; respira- tion, 27." Mrs. McKinley felt so encouraged that she took a drive during the afternoon. News from the bedside on Tuesday was more favorable still. The danger point was regarded as past, and fast recovery was the general prediction. The doctors had only two services aside, of course, from careful watching to perform. One was to open in part the President's outside wound to remove some foreign substances, and the other was to give him food for the first time. It de- veloped that a portion of the President's clothing had been carried into the wound by the bullet, and this had not all been removed at the first opera- tion. As slight irritation was caused by the cloth, the surgeons removed it. The operation caused no harm, and little annoyance to the patient. The President felt so well that he asked for some newspapers to read. The request was denied. The President enjoyed the food given him beef extract. At 10:30 o'clock on Tuesday night the physicians issued this bulletin: "The condition of the President is unchanged in all important par- McKINLEY'S ASSASSINATION. 509 tioulars. His temperature is 100.6; pulse, 114; respiration, 28." Wednesday was another day full of hopeful signs. The President continued to show remark- able recuperative powers and passed the day with- out the slightest unfavorable symptom. He was able to retain food on his stomach, and surprised and amused his doctors by asking for a cigar. He was not allowed to smoke, but he was placed in a new bed. He was also given a bath. His highest temperature on Wednesday was 100.4. That was at 10 o'clock in the evening. The highest point reached by his pulse was 120 at 6 a. m. and his respiration remained normal at 26. It was on Thursday, just six days after the shooting, that the President suffered a relapse. Everybody was still full of hopes until 8.30 o'clock in the evening, when the physicians announced officially that the President's condition was not so good. The problem of disposing of the food in the stomach was becoming a serious one, and the danger of heart failure increased. At midnight the situation was critical. Calomel and oil were given to flush the bowels and digitalis to quiet the heart. The bowels moved soon afterwards, and the patient improved. The'pulse dropped to 120, and the prospect was regarded as brighter. Shortly after 2 o'clock Friday morning, the physicians and nurses detected a weakening of the 510 McKINLEY'S ASSASSINATION. heart action. The pulse fluttered and weakened and the President sank toward a collapse. The end appeared at hand. Restoratives were applied speedily, but they did not at once prove effective. It was then decided to send for the other physi- cians, relatives, members of the Cabinet and close personal friends of the President. The full corps of doctors were soon on the scene and all set to work as they never worked before. About 6 a. m. the President rallied and seemed to have a fighting chance. At 6:30 o'clock he was thought to be dying. At 7 o'clock it was an- announced by Abner McKinley, brother of the President, that he was sleeping quietly, watched closely by his physicians. At 8:40 o'clock Mr. Milburn told a friend who called to see him that they were encouraged by the developments of the last half hour and that they thought the President had a fighting chance. About 9 a. rn. the following bulletin was issued: "The President's condition has improved some- what during the last few hours. There is a better response to stimulation. He is conscious and free from pain. Pulse, 128; temperature, 99.8." The remaining hours of the day were spent in hoping against hope, and in a vain fight on the part of the doctors. Members of the Cabinet and others near to the President, came and went at frequent intervals during the day, deeply moved over the situation. McKINLEY'S ASSASSINATION. 511 At 12 :30 the following bulletin was issued : "The President's physicians report that his con- dition is practically unchanged since the 9 o'clock bulletin. He is sleeping quietly." At 2.30 in the afternoon this bulletin was given to the public : "The President has more than held his own, and his condition justifies the expectation of fur- ther improvement. He is better than yesterday at this time. Pulse, 123; temperature, 99.4." At 4 p. m. came this bulletin : "The President's physicians report that he is only slightly improved. Since the last bulletin the pulse and temperature remain the same as at that hour." This was followed by another at 5 : 48 as follows : "The President is suffering from extreme pros- tration. Oxygen is being given. He responds to stimulation but poorly. Pulse, 125; respiration, 40." At 6:15 this was followed by another, reading: u ln spite of vigorous stimulation the President's depression continues and is profound. Unless it be relieved the end is but a question of time," CHAPTER XXVI. DEATH OF PRESIDENT McKINLEY. Dies Peacefully at 2:15 A. M., Saturday, September 14 Fond Farewell of Husband and Wife Last Words, " Nearer, My God, to Thee." PEACEFULLY and gently like the faint flick- ering of a burned-out candle, President McKinley breathed his last at 2:15, Sat- urday morning, September 14, 1901. Words of consolation to his wife were the last that passed his lips, and they came after a general " good-by " said to the American people, whom he had loved all his life. Those present in the room when the President died were: Dr. Rixey, Abner McKinley, Mrs. Sarah Duncan, Miss Helen McKinley, Miss Mary Barber, Miss Sarah Duncan, Lieutenant James F. McKinley, W. C. Duncan, T. M. Osborn, Colonel Webb C. Hayes, , Comptroller Charles G. Dawes, Colonel W. C. Brown, Secretary Cortelyou, John Barber, three nurses and three orderlies. Mrs. McKinley was not present. She had taken her 512 DEATH OF McKINLEY. 513 last farewell from her husband and had been in- duced to retire. Before 6 o'clock the evening before, it was clear to those at the President's bedside that he was dying, and preparations were made for the last sad offices of farewell from those who were near- est and dearest to him. Oxygen had been ad- ministered steadily, but with little effect in keep- ing back the approach of death. The President came out of one period of uncon- sciousness only to relapse into another. But in this period, when his mind was partially clear, occurred a series of events of profoundly touching charac- ter. Down stairs, with strained and tear-stained faces, members of the Cabinet were grouped in anxious waiting. They knew the end was near and that the time had come when they must see him for the last time on earth. This was about 6 o'clock. One by one they as- cended the stairway Secretary Root, Secretary Hitchcock and Attorney General Knox. Secre- tary Wilson also was there, but he held back, not wishing to see the President in his last agony. There was only a momentary stay of the Cabinet officers at the threshold of the death chamber. Then they withdrew, the tears streaming down their faces and the words of intense grief choking in their throats. At 7:55 o'clock the President recovered con- 514 DEATH OF McKINLEY. sciousness, and realizing that the end was at hand he asked for Mrs. McKinley. She was taken into the room and to her husband's bedside. All left the room, save one nurse, and the husband and wife were practically alone. The strong face of the dying man lighted up with a smile as their hands were clasped. The President was able to speak faintly as his wife bent over him. What he said only he and she know. Those who know how tenderly and constantly he has cared for her and how great his anxiety has been for her ever since he was stricken down by the anarchist's bullet can hardly speak of that pitiful scene without almost breaking down at the thought of it. Just before the President lost consciousness Mrs. McKinley knelt at his side. He knew her and said: " Good-by, all; good-bye. It is God's way; not our will, but Thine be done." And then he said faintly, speaking to no one in particular, " Nearer, my God, to Thee." It was a long leave- taking, and, finally, they carried her half fainting to her room. They watched over her anxiously. They feared the effect of the severing of bonds which were so close and upon which she was so dependent. News of what was happening went down stairs and out into the street. It was received everywhere with tears. ''They are saying good-bye to each other," DEATH OF McKINLEY. 515 pie whispered in the streets, all along those crowded blocks near the house. Every one was thinking of what the life of these two had been, of the intense, beautiful devotion each to the other, of what a tender, chivalrous lover-husband he had been. It was impossible to think of this and then of the scene in that room upon which the thoughts of the whole world were centered, without feeling the eyes grow hot under the lids and a lump come into the throat. In that room it was, for the moment, not the head of the mightiest nation on earth who was dying, it was a husband and lover standing by the dark river and giving the last look of love to that sad, lonely invalid woman, to whom his smile and cheerful words were literally the breath of life. As the news spread, the hush that was always upon the hundred or more people within the ropes seemed to become deeper. It was like the solemn stillness of a church, so far as those nearest the house were concerned. The only sound was the swift clicking of the telegraph instruments as the news was rushed away to all parts of the country. The President continued in an unconscious con- dition to the end. Dr. Rixey remained with him until death came. The other doctors were in the room at times, and then repaired to the front room, where their consultations had been held. .516 DEATH OF McKINLEY. About 2 o'clock Dr. Rixey noted the unmistak- able signs of dissolution, and the immediate mem- bers of the family were summoned to the bedside. Mrs. McKinley was asleep, and it was deemed desirable not to awaken her for the last moments of anguish. Silently and sadly the members of the family stole into the room. They stood about the foot and sides of the bed where the great man's life was ebbiug away. In an adjoining room sat the physicians, includ- ing Drs. McBurney, Wasdin, Park, Stockton, and Mynter. It was now 2:05 o'clock, and the minutes were slipping away. Only the sobs of those in the circle about the President's bedside broke the awe-like silence. Five minutes passed, then six, seven, eight Now Dr. Rixey bent forward, and then one of his hands was raised, as if in warning. The flut- tering heart was just going to rest. A moment more and Dr. Rixey straightened up, and with choking voice said: "The President is dead!" Secretary Cortelyou was the first to turn from the stricken circle. He stepped from the chamber to the outer hall, and then down the stairway to the large room where the members of the Cabinet, Senators, and distinguished officials were assem- DEATH OF McKINLEY. 517 bled. As his tense, white face appeared at the doorway a hush fell upon the assemblage. "Gentlemen, the President has passed away," he said. For a moment not a word came in reply. Even though the end had been expected, the actual announcement that William McKinley was dead fairly stunned these men who had been his closest confidants and advisers. Then a groan of anguish went up from the assembled officials . They cried outright like children. All the pent-up emotions of the last few days were let loose. They turned from the room and came from the house with streaming eyes. Leaving the stricken circle Secretary Cortelyou left the house and walked down to the ropes where the waiting correspondents stood ready to send the sad news on lightning's wings to the people who had always been uppermost in the thoughts and deeds of the dead President. "Gentlemen," he said, "the President passed away at 2:15." CHAPTER XXVII. BURIAL OF PRESIDENT McKINLET. Private Funeral Services Lying in State at Buffalo and "Washington- Interment at Canton. AS THE daily life of William McKinley was marked by the greatest simplicity, so were the last rites and services over his casket. The private funeral services were held at the Milburn residence, Sunday, September 15, at eleven o'clock in the morning. The casket had been placed in the library, with the silken folds of an American flag draped about it. Red roses, white chrysanthemums and wreaths of purple violets lay at the foot of the bier. Two hundred cards had been issued and shortly before the appointed time the invited few began to arrive. Senator Hanna was among the first. President Roosevelt arrived just before the ap- pointed time for the services. The immediate members of the McKinley family gathered in a 518 BURIAL OE McKIXLEy. Dllt room adjoining the library. Mrs. McKinley was not with them, Surrounded by Mrs. Barber, Miss Barber, Mrs, Garret Hobart and Dr. Rixey, she was seated in the upper hallway where every word pronounced over the casket that contained all that she held dear in the world could reach her. Senator Hanna was the first man of national prominence to enter the library. He was followed by the Cabinet members, who took places on the left of the casket. As President Roosevelt entered everyone rose. He walked gravely tolthe head of the casket. For a moment he gazed on the face of McKinley. Turning, he spoke in a low voice tol Secretary Long, who stood next. He evidently requested that cabinet precedence be observed, for there was an immediate change in the positions of the Cabinet members. When the funeral services were held at the Mil- burn house Mrs. McKinley was unable to come down stairs. Sedatives had been given her and the President's remains had been taken away without her knowing of their removal. At this moment Rev. Dr. Charles Edward Locke of the Delaware Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church, son of that Dr. Locke who for many years was the McKinley pastor at Canton, entered the room. The quartette of the First Presbyterian Church, made up of Miss Kate Tyrell, Mrs. Clara Barnes 520 BURIAL OF McKINLEY. Holmes, Raymond O. Rietpeister and George C. Sweet, had been standing in the dining room, and with the sweet strains of that favorite hymn of the late President, "Lead Kindly Light," the services were begun. As the last strains died away Dr. Locke began reading the chapter in the I. Corinthians, that, from its sad associations, has become so familiar. In a low but clear voice he read it to its conclusion. There was a moment's pause after he had fin- ished, and then the quartet sang the four verses of that other hymn, so dear to the man above whose bier the mourners stood, that as he passed into the last unconsciousness, his lips formed its words after the strength to speak had gone. Silently the assembled men and women framed with their lips the words of "Nearer, my God, to Thee," as the choir sang it through. Dr. Locke raised his hands as the music died away. He made this eloquent appeal: "Let us pray: O God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come, Our shelter from the stormy blast And our eternal home. *We, Thy humble servants, beseech Thee for manifesta- tions of Thy favor as we come into Thy presence. We laud and magnify Thy holy name and praise Thee for all Thy goodness. Be merciful unto us and bless us as, stricken with overwhelm- ing sorrow, we come unto Thee. In this dark night of grief abide with us till the dawning. Speak to our troubled souls, God, and give to us in this hour BURIAL OF McKINLEY. 521 of unutterable grief the peace and quiet which Thy presence only can afford. We thank Thee that Thou dost answer the sobbing sigh of the heart and dost assure us that if a man die he shall live again. We praise Thee for Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Savior and elder brother; that He came "to bring life and immortality to light," and because He lives we shall live also. We thank Thee that death is victory, that ' 'to die is gain. " Have mercy upon us in this dispensation of Thy provi- dence. We believe in Thee we trust Thee our God of love, "the same yesterday, to-day and forever." "We thank Thee for the unsullied life of Thy servant, our martyred President, whom Thou hast taken to his coronation, and we pray for the final triumph of all the divine principles of pure character and free government for which he stood while he lived, and which were baptized by his blood in his death. Hear our prayer for blessings of consolation upon all those who were associated with him in the administration of the affairs of the government; especially vouchsafe Thy presence to Thy servant who has been suddenly called to assume the holy responsibilities of our chief magistrate. God, bless our dear nation, and guide the ship of state through stormy seas. Help Thy people to be brave to fight the battles of the Lord, and wise to solve all the problems of freedom. Graciously hear us for comforting blessings to rest upon the family circle of our departed friend. Tenderly sustain Thine handmaiden, upon whom the blow of this sorrow most heavily falls. Accompany her, God, as Thou has promised, through this dark valley and shadow, and may she fear no evil, because Thou are with her. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with us all evermore. Amen, 522 BURIAL OF McKINLEY. As Dr. Locke began repeating the Lord's prayer the mourners joined with him, and all bowed lo w their heads as he pronounced the benediction. Then a man, who seemed suddenly to have grown old, rose from his seat beside Governor Odell and slowly walked alone past the line of cab- inet officers and to the side of the new President. His hands clasped behind his back, his head bent down on his great chest, Senator Hanna stopd and gazed for the last time on the face of the man he loved. It seemed to the mourners that he stood there looking down at his dead friend's face for fully five minutes. In reality it was nearly two minutes before he turned, and slowly, sadly retraced his steps across the room. As Senator Hanna sat down the casket was closed and the soldiers and sailors advanced from the points where they had been stationed. Lift- ing it gently they slowly began their solemn march to the hearse, which stood waiting outside. Close behind the casket followed President Eoosevelt, with Secretary Root on his left and the other mem- bers of the cabinet following. Slowly, very slowly, they took their way into the hall, out the front door, down the steps and down the walk to the hearse, while a band posted across the street softly played "Nearer, My God, to Thee." As the funeral cortege passed slowly down Del- aware avenue the little host that had listened to the services, filed quietly out of the house. BURIAL OF McKINLEY. 523 Mrs. McKinley did not accompany the cortege from the house. As the services were nearing an end she exhibited marked signs of exhaustion arid Dr. Rixey and her other companions gently lifted her from her seat and led her to a room. Then they closed the door that she might not hear the rhythmic tread of the marching soldiers as they escorted the casket from the house. She was utterly worn out and within a few seconds had lapsed into slumber. The funeral cortege left the Milburn house at 11:45 o'clock. Slowly and solemnly, in time to the funeral march, it moved between two huge masses of men, women and children, stretching away two miles and a half to the city hall. Nearly two hours were required to traverse the distance. During the afternoon and night the President's body lay in state in the city hall. Such a sponta- neous outpouring of people to show their regard for a man whom they had admired and loved from a distance was never equaled on this earth under like circumstances. The hours during which the public was to be permitted to view the remains had been set from 1 to 6 o'clock. More than twice as many as could hope to get through the lines in that time came from all over western New York until fully 200,000 were massed during the morning. In the face of such a concourse the limit was extended, but the 524 BURIAL OF McKINLEY patient thousands did not know it. They merely stayed on through the storm and hoped. "For nearly ten hours they streamed through the city hall corridor where the President lay, passing in two lines which formed faster than they melted. Ten thousand an hour flowed past until weather and physical collapse wore out other thousands and the thin line ended at 11 o'clock at night. In the afternoon Mrs. McKinley begged to be taken to her husband. When told that the body had been carried to the city hall, where the people were to have an opportunity to see it, she de- manded that it be brought back to her. He was her husband, she had a right to him. The people had all his best years, his strength, his life. In death he was hers, and she would have her rights. Hysterically she cried aloud for him again and again. A council of the family was hastily called, and some favored sending for the remains of the President in order to calm the anguish of the widow with the soothing sense of possession. But at this moment Mrs. Hob art, widow of the Vice President, succeeded in convincing Mrs. McKin- ley that it was her duty to let the people see the face of their beloved President. Thanks to the strong influence which Mrs. Hobart has always exerted over her friend, Mrs. McKinley was finally calmed and induced to lie down and try to sleep. Dr. Eixey prepared an- BURIAL OF McKlXLEY. 525 other glass of medicine and the crisis was momen- tarily over. Later in the day the unhappy woman again demanded the body of her husband, but for the second time she was comforted by her loving friends. Mrs. McKinley's anguish over her loss was the saddest and most pathetic demonstration in the awful tragedy. After lying in state at the Buffalo city hall the remains of President McKinley were brought to Washington by special train, September 16. The route was 420 miles long, passing through dense masses of people in every city, town and hamlet. Everywhere were signs of deepest mourning. The train drew into the depot at Washington at 8:38 in the evening, and the body was taken to the White House, where it was guarded during the night by veterans of the Civil War. At 9 o'clock on the following day the funeral parade formed at the White House and started for the rotunda of the capitol where the funeral ser- vices were held. These were opened by the choir of the Metropolitan M. E. church, where Mr. Mc- Kinley had been a worshiper, singing "Lead, Kind- ly Light." The Rev. Henry E. Naylor offered the invocation and Bishop Andrews delivered the fun- eral address. This was followed by the choir sing- ing "Some Time We'll Understand." The bene- 526 BURIAL OF McKINLEY. diction was pronounced by the Rev. W. H. Chap- man. Following this came one of the most dra- matic incidents of the ceremony. The choir began to softly syllable the first lines of the hymn "Nearer, My God, to Thee." For several lines the choir alone followed the melodion in the time. Then the volume of the song was audibly increased. A few of the audience, unable to restrain themselves, had joined their voices with those of the chosen singers. Their example was followed timidly by others until the dome rang with the notes of the solemn and beloved song. President Eoosevelt murmured the words of the song along with the other auditors. The lines of his face, which had been hard with the rigidity of the trial and grief, softened into an expression of the tenderest sympathy as his lips moved in singing the hymn. Grover Cleveland, the very embodiment of stately dignity, seemed even more dignified as his lips parted with a barely perceptible motion in response to the rhythm of the hymn. Officers of the army and navy, who had seen death in its worst form without a tremor and possibly who had not sung a church hymn for many years, hummed the tune when they could not remember the words. All eyes were streaming with tears. A respectful silence followed the end of the hymn which marked the conclusion of the funeral services. A few moments elapsed and then the rotunda was BURIAL OF McKINLET. 527 cleared for the body to lie in state to be viewed by the great multitude who were crowding the steps ready to pass through in double file on either side of the coffin. The flag was draped back from the head of the casket, the velvet-covered lid was re- moved and the President's face was exposed to the light which poured in through the upper windows of the dome. In the evening the body was removed by special train to the McKinley home in Canton. All along the route were evidences of the deepest mourning. Everywhere people had gathered to catch a glimpse of the train that was bearing away forever all that was earthly of their beloved President. The funeral services at Canton were held Thurs- day, September 19. The removal of the remains from the old homestead to the First Methodist Church, where the services were held, levied the hardest tribute upon the sorrow and love of the people of Canton. Mrs. McKinley lingered by the bier up to the moment it was lifted to be borne from the house to the hearse. She wept hyster- ically and refused to be comforted when led away to her room. She did not attend the church ser- vices or the ceremonies at the receiving vault in the cemetery. The casket was covered with purple orchids and white roses. Every head within a block of the residence was bared when the hearse, drawn by 528 BURIAL OF McKINLEY. four black horses, and under heavy escort, led the way to the church. The pulpit was a wilderness of flowers, purple predominating. There were forty-six large pieces on the platform, 200 in the vestibules. A small portrait of the dead President was placed at the head of the bier, which was spread with the national colors and caught in a knot of black cord at the corner. Just above the pulpit was a panel of red roses with a harp made of white immortelles. At the right of the platform was a mammoth shield worked in roses and bearing the letters "G. A. R.," and on the opposite wing of the platform was a wreath of white and purple roses bearing the inscription " Our Comrade." This was presented by the late President's old regiment, the Twenty-third Ohio. All the floral decorations were caught with white and purple ribbons. The balconies were festooned with graceful curves of black cashmere, while the vestibules were a solid mass of black. All was hushed when the great church organ played Beethoven's " Funeral March." Some of the auditors wept, others strained their eyes to- ward the sable vestibule where it was expected the casket would enter. Still others looked rue- fully at the old pew of President McKinley, which was entirely covered with black cloth. This pew is four seats from the front in the left center sec- BURIAL OF McKINLEY. 529 tion of the church. It was not occupied during the services. While the fingers of the organist still lingered over the keys, a band without played "Lead, Kindly Light," and the flower-laden casket con- taining the remains of the late President was borne into the church and laid on the bier. President Koosevelt led the funeral party. He was ushered into the second pew from the front of the right central section. After the casket was placed the organ rendered "Nearer, My God, to Thee." Eev. 0. B. Milligan, pastor of the Canton Presbyterian church, offered prayer. A ladies' quartet then rendered an orig- inal hymn, entitled " The Beautiful Isle of Some- where." A mixed quartet sang " Lead, Kindly Light." This was followed by a scripture reading from the nineteenth psalm, by Dr. John A. Hall, pastor of Trinity Lutheran church. Kev. E. P. Herrick, pastor of the Trinity Eeformed church, read from Corinthians xv, 41-58. Kev. C. E. Manchester, pastor of the church, delivered the funeral sermon. No text was announced. The purpose of the speaker was to pay a tribute to his friend and parishoner. The sermon abounded in personal anecdotes illustrating the Christian character of the illustrious dead. At the close of the sermon Bishop L. W. Joyce, of Minneapolis, offered a fervent prayer. " Nearer, 630 BUKIAL OF McKINLEX". My G-od, to Thee " was sung again. It was the benediction to a notable service. A moment's silence, a word of prayer and the guard again bore aloft the casket. The funeral was over. Through a parted sea of humanity extending more than two miles the funeral car of the dead President was drawn to its long home in Westlawn cemetery. With measured tread and slow stride Lieutenant General Miles headed the file of army and navy officers who walked at the right of the hearse. President Eoosevelt could be seen through the open windows of his carriage, but his face was as expressionless as alabaster, save for the expression of sorrow which overcast the features of all. Chopin's funeral march was the prevailing strain in the band music, while minute guns played from the crest of Westlawn cemetery as the solemn column wound its way westward and northward. As the funeral party neared the approach to the cemetery the way was strewn with sweet peas, which had been sent in large quantities to Canton by the school children of Nashville, Term. Members of the Twenty-third Ohio, McKinley's old regiment, wept as they picked up the pretty flowers and tucked them away in the lapels of their coats. The mausoleum where the body of the dead President will await the great monument that will be ereo^ed in his memory was a bower of roses. BURIAL OF McKINLEY. 531 When the funeral party reached the receiving vault the casket was received by the old guard of regulars and jackies and borne to the vault be- tween two lines. President Roosevelt was the first to move towards the vault. He was escorted by Colonel Bingham and took a position at the right of the mausoleum door, Secretary Boot standing at the head of the left line. The mem- bers of the cabinet were disposed on both sides of the pathway leading to the vault, with the army chiefs on the right and navy officials on the left. As the flower-laden casket reached the portals of its resting place a salvo of artillery was fired. Abner McKinley, the President's brother, and his wife followed the remains to the door and were succeeded by other members of the family. Bishop Joyce read the Methodist burial service, consisting of the chapter in Revelations describing the vision of the holy city, and offered a brief prayer. Secretary Wilson wept as the preacher spoke the solemn lines: "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust." After the relatives had returned to their car- riages, taps were sounded by eight buglers of the G. A. R. As the last silvery note of the bugles died away sentries were posted at the door of the receiving vault and the party turned to go. The beloved fellow citizen had been laid to his final rest amid the weeping of a nation. 532 BUKIAL OF McKINLEY. On the day of the funeral services at Canton, business was suspended throughout the country and the doors of every business house of any respectable pretentions were closed. Memorial services were conducted in the churches and me- morial parades were held in the larger cities. For five minutes after 2:30 o'clock there was absolute silence and quiet in the cities, except the tolling of church bells. Parades stopped and stood at attention, street cars stopped while the men con- ducting them stood with bared heads, telegraph instruments ceased clicking, and railway trains wherever they were stopped. Never before in the history of the nation had there been such a general demonstration of sorrow and such an outward exhibition of respect for the illustrious dead. CHAPTER XXVIII. TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF ASSASSIN. Czolgosz Indicted and Convicted of Murder in the First Degree at Buffalo Executed by Electrocution at Auburn, October 29, 1901. LEON CZOLGOSZ, the assassin of President McKinley, was American born, the son of Polish emigrants. He was reared under good home and church influences. As a boy he was noted for his taciturn nature. After reaching young manhood he became studious, with a strong leaning toward the doctrines of Anarchy and kindred ocial societies, and from the evidence produced and his own statements, it is evident that the teaching of Anarchy spurred him on to commit the crime. To the last he maintained that he alone was responsible for the act and that he had no accomplices, saying, " I killed President McKinley because 1 believed it to be my duty. I don't believe one man should have so much service and another man should have none." By occupation Czolgosz was a laborer, and a shift- 533 534 ASSASSIN'S TRIAL AND EXECUTION. less one at that, and the foregoing statement, coupled with his leaning toward Anarchy, indicates that he had brooded over his condition compared with that of those in the higher walks of life until he became possessed by the idea that in the re- moval of the President was a remedy for his imagined wrongs. Ten days after the death of President McKinley his assassin had been indicted by the grand jury, put to trial, and convicted of murder in the first degree. The machinery of tne law moved with unprecedented regularity and rapidity for a case of such prominence. There were no delays or dilatory proceedings. The trial was before Judge White of Buffalo. The people were represented by District Attorney Penney in person, and Judge Lewis and Judge Titus were appointed by the court to appear for the prisoner. Czolgosz maintained during the trial the same stolidity that had characterized him since he committed the crime. When ar- raigned he pleaded guilty, but his plea was changed on the suggestion of (he court and the advice of his counsel. The testimony introduced by the people, while brief, covered every essential part of the crime. The defense offered no evidence. When the state rested its case, Judge Lewis, amid profound silence, arose to open the defense. He began his ASSASSIN'S TRIAL AND EXECUTION. 535 brief address by explaining the position of himself and his colleague, and entreated that this position be understood as one of legal necessity and not one of choice. As he discussed the case his voice trembled with deep emotion, and tears rolled down his cheeks. He closed by saying : "That, gentlemen, is about all I have to say. Our Pres- ident was a grand man. I watched his career for twenty years, and always had the profoundest esteem for him. He was a tender and devoted husband, a man of finest character, and his death was the saddest blow I have ever known." As he concluded he sank into a chair and pressed a handkerchief to his eyes. So strange a defense for a murderer had never before been heard. Judge Titus then arose and said: "The remarks of my associate so completely cover the ground that it is not necessary for me to add any- thing." In charging the jury Judge White paid a tender tribute to the memory of the dead President. The jury retired, and thirty-five minutes later brought in a verdict of murder in the first degree. This was the 24th of September. Two days later Leon Czolgosz was sentenced by Judge White to die during the week beginning October 28. The assas- sin showed signs of fear as the judge pronounced his doom. During the night following, Czolgosz was secretly removed to Auburn penitentiary to 536 ASSASSIN'S TRIAL AND EXECUTION. await his execution. On arriving at the prison he collapsed and seemed to realize for the first time the magnitude of his offense. Czolgosz was electrocuted on the morning of October 29, 1901, at exactly 7:12:30 o'clock. The witnesses assembled in the death chamber at 7 :08 o'clock, and at 7:10:30 the murderer was brought in. He was intensely pale, and the four guards who accompanied him had , to urge him forward after he had stumbled on the threshold of the en- trance. The assassin had refused to make a con- fession or to call a priest, but as he was being seated in the death chair and the electrical appa- ratus was being fitted to his head he stared at the guards and said : "I killed the president because he was an enemy of the good people of the working peo- ple." His voice trembled slightly at first, but gained strength with each word, and he spoke perfect English. "I am not sorry for my crime," he said loudly, just as the guard pushed his head back on the rubber rest and drew the strap across his fore- head and chin. As the pressure of the straps tightened and bound the jaw slightly he mumbled: " I am awfully sorry I could not see my father." It was exactly 7:11 o'clock when Czolgosz crossed the threshold. He had just finished his ASSASSIN'S TRIAL AND EXECUTION. 537 last statement when the strapping was completed and the guards stepped back. Warden Mead raised his hand and at 7:12:30 Electrician Davis turned the switch that threw 1,700 volts of elec- tricity into the living body. The rush of the current threw the body so hard against the straps that they creaked perceptibly. The hands clinched suddenly and the whole atti- tude was one of extreme tenseness. For forty- five seconds the full current was kept on, and then slowly the electrician threw the switch back, reducing the current volt by volt until it was cut off entirely. Then just as it had reached that point he threw the lever back again for two or three seconds. The body, which had collapsed as the current was reduced, stiffened up again against the straps. When it was turned off again Dr. Macdonald stepped to the chair and put his hand over the heart. He said he felt no pulsa- tion, but suggested that the current be turned on for a few seconds again. Once more the body be- came rigid. At 7:15 the current was turned off for good. The physicians used the stethoscope and other tests to determine if any life remained, and at 7:17 the warden, raising his hand, announced: "Gen- tlemen, the prisoner is dead." The witnesses filed from the chamber, many of them visibly affected, and the body was taken 538 ASSASSIN'S TRIAL AND EXECUTION. from the chair and laid on the operating table. The autopsy proved that the brain was normal or slightly above normal. The remains were depos- ited in the prison cemetery and destroyed by acid and quicklime before being covered with earth. Such was the end of one of the most despised men that ever breathed American air. CHAPTER XXIX. .THEODORE ROOSEVELT. BY MUEAT HALSTEAD Sketch of the life of the Hero of Santiago His public career ana important achievements Unanimously nominated for the Vice- Presidency. PRESIDENT WILLIAM McKINLEY has reason to be proud that on the Republican ticket for his re-election he has associated with him, as the candidate for the Vice-Presidency, Theodore Roosevelt. Both are men who were tried and proven true, weighed and not found wanting, in the hours of their country's peril and the days of their country's peace. In time of war both were at the front and both in places where there was the thunder with the deadly hail of battle about them. It may not be so well remembered by the brave boys of to-day, who in the enthusiasm of their victory over the Spaniards may forget the equally daring deeds of their fathers, but it remains true that just as Roosevelt urged on and was in front of his Rough Riders, the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, so it was with Major McKinley, of whom General 539 540 THEODOKE KOOSEVELT. Sheridan said, in an official report of his ride to Winchester, that he found McKinley far in front urging his men to rally, one of the officers who were "doing their duty." Another point of interest in the military careers of the two men was their devotion as officers to the care of their men. McKinley, then a mere lacl in the commissary department, saw during a severe engage- ment that though it was his seeming duty to stay in the rear and watch after the stores in his charge, yet the men in front were hard-pressed and without food, and this made the seeming duty a certain mistake. The man's part was to get to the fellow-soldiers and give to them sustenance to support them in their try- ing position and so the commissary sergeant, with shell and shrapnell bursting on every side, went ahead with his provisions and personally risked more danger than the men at the front as he moved among them and handed down to them in the trenches coffee and hard tack. Theodore Roosevelt, when Spain was whipped and the horrid hand of the tropics was snatching away his brave boys, dared to be sponsor for a mes- sage to the home government, in which he called attention to their condition and the very real necessity of bringing them home, away from the pestilence and the miserable death in camp ? at which the soldier shudders who can laughingly face death in the battlefield. The selection of McKinley and Roosevelt by the THEODORE ROOSEVELT. r.tl Republican party at Philadelphia is singularly appro- priate and fitting, for both are men of the Nation ; one born of humble, honorable parentage, who has wisely served his Government as soldier and states- man, and the other born to the heritage of the old aristocracy of New York, who was equally anxious to do and successful in doing a citizen's part in peace and war. Very briefly the career of Theodore Roosevelt is : He was born in the City of New York on October 27, 1858. He is of the eighth generation of Roose- velts who have lived in New York. He began his public life in the fall of 1881 as a member of the New York Legislature, having been elected to the Assembly from the Twenty-first dis- trict. He was re-elected three times, serving in 1882, 1883 and 1884. He was chairman of the Cities Committee, and after his first year was the Republican leader on the floor of the Assembly. He was at the head of the Republican delegation from this State to the National Convention in 1884, which nominated James G. Blaine. In 1886 he ran on the Republican ticket for Mayor of New Y< >rk against Abrain S. Hewitt and was defeated. He was appointed Civil Service Commissioner by Presi- dent Harrison in 1889 and was retained by Presi- dent Cleveland. He resigned in 1895 and was appointed Police Commissioner in New York by Mayor Strong, and was elected president of the board. 542 THEODORE KOOSEVELT. He was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy by President McKinley in 1897, but resigned in May of the following year and came to New York to become Lieutenant Colonel of the First Cavalry, United States Volunteers, the world renowned Roosevelt Rough Riders. He returned to New York after the war a Colonel, and was elected Governor of the Empire State. What a splendid career this is, even in the meager outline, the story of an American boy, who was not overpowered by the advantages of his birth, but was a worthy descendant of Americans and fitted to run, forced to run, by the unanimous will of his country- men with the President of humbler birth ! It was truly as hard for the one as for the other to rise to their exalted positions. Governor Roosevelt of the great State of New York did not want to be the Vice-Presidential nomi- nee, not that he failed to appreciate the glory and the honor, but because he is a man of purpose, and it takes more than a single term for such a man to accomplish all that should be done in the way of bettering the State over which the shadow of the Tammany tiger falls, as the great beast shelters the brothels and the saloons, and rejoices when the poor cry for ice, because that increases the price and the profits of the Mayor and the Tammany associates of the Ice Trust. There was further work for Roose- velt to do, he felt, and as he put it at Philadelphia: "In view of the revival of the talk of myself as a THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 543 Vice-Presidential candidate, I have this to say: It is impossible too deeply to express how touched I a in by the attitude of those delegates who have wished ine to take this nomination. "Moreover, it is not necessary to say how thor- oughly I understand the high honor and dignity of the office an olfice so high and so honorable that it is well worthy the ambition of any man in the United States. " But, while I appreciate all this to the full, I nevertheless feel most deeply that the field of my best usefulness to the public and to the party is in New York State, and if the party should see fit to renominate me for Governor, I can in that position help the national ticket as in no other way. " I very earnestly ask that every friend of mind in the Convention respect my wishes and my judgment in this matter." Every man is liable to be in the wrong. The Governor of the State of New York had but one duty, and that was to again "Kally round Flag," and with his President fight the foes of honest money, of national honor in dealing with the possessions thai, have come to us with the war with Spain. A com- ment made to a friend not long before he went to Philadelphia illustrates the truth of this statement. He said in effect: " How will I ever be able to hold myself in if I am Vice-President and there occurs a debate on I!M floor of the Senate upon the expansion question? If 544 THEODOKE ROOSEVELT. I should hear a bitter, irritating, specious and absurd speech on the anti-expansion side I should feel just like flinging down the gavel, rushing from the Vice- President's place to the floor of the Senate and plunging into the battle." Again "Teddy," as the people love to call him, was in error. As Vice-President he will be tolerant of all opposing views, but will not be wishy-washy in properly suppressing those who are careless of par- liamentary rules, or submitting to any false courtesy of tradition among the Senators as to their preroga- tives when they do not apply themselves to business, or where they are directly treasonable to the United States of America. The Colonel of the Rough Riders could not be better presented than he was at Philadelphia before the National Republican Convention, which would and did nominate him, whether he would or no. It is interesting and very proper to state here that among the many present was a young woman, a typical American woman, the mother of an American brood of children, who did not weep and grow hysterical when Teddy went to war, and that as he entered the hall he did not fail to stop and greet her, the mother of his children. She heard the nominating speeches, listened to her big husband second the nomination of the President and wit- nessed the glory of his later nomination, when the crowds swarmed about him after the splendid roll call of the States, the sonorous alphabet, beginning with THEODOKE ROOSEVELT. 54:, Alabama, Laving been called and there was only one delegate's vote missing, that of the Governor of the State of New York, but that missing vote was many times repeated in the wife's heart, so that it need not be recorded against him. Colonel Lafe Young, in presenting the name of Governor Roosevelt to the Convention for the Vice- Presidential nomination, said: " Gentlemen of the Convention : I have listened with profound interest to the numerous indictments pronounced against the Democratic party, and, as an impartial reader of history, I am compelled to con- fess that the indictments are all only too true. If I am to judge, however, by the enthusiasm of this hour, the Republican Relief Committee sent out four years ago, to carry supplies and succor to the pros- trate industries of the Republic, has returned to make formal report that the duty has been dis- charged. [Applause.] I could add nothing to this indictment, except to say that this unfortunate party through four years of legislation and administrative control had made it, up to 1896, impossible for an honest man to get into debt, or to get out of it. " But, my fellow-citizens, you know my purpose, you know the heart of this Convention. The coun- try never called for patriotic sons from any given family, but more were offered than there was room for on the enlistment roll. When this Convention and this great party called for a candidate for Vice- President two voices responded, one from the Missis- 546 THEODOEE ROOSEVELT. sippi Valley by birth, another by loving affection and adoption. " It is my mission, representing that part of the great Louisiana purchase, to withdraw one of these sons and suggest that the duty be placed upon the other. I therefore withdraw the name of Jonathan P. Dolliver, of Iowa, a man born with the thrill of the Lincoln and Fremont campaigns in his heart and with the power to stir the hearts and consciences of men as part of his birthright. " We turn to this other adopted son of the great middle West, and at this moment I recall that two years ago to-day as many men as there are men and women in this great hall were on board sixty trans- ports lying off Santiago harbor, in full view of the bay, with Morro Castle looming up upon the right and another prominence upon the left, with the open- ing of the channel between. " On board those transports were twenty thousand soldiers that had gone away from our shores to lib- erate another race, to fulfill no obligation but that of humanity. "As campaign followers there were those who witnessed this great spectacle of that fleet, and on the ship Yucatan was that famous regiment of Rough Eiders of the far West and the Mississippi Valley. [Applause.] In command of that regiment was that fearless young American, student, scholar, plainsman, reviewer, historian, statesman, soldier, of the middle West by adoption, of New York by THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 547 birth. That fleet sailing around the point, coming to the place of landing, stood off the harbor, t\\<> years ago to-morrow, and the navy bombarded that shore to make a place, for landing, and no man who lives who was in that campaign as an officer, as a soldier, or as a camp follower, can fail to recall the spectacle; and, if he closes his eyes he sees the awful scenes in that campaign in June and July, 1898. Then, the landing being completed, there were those who stood upon the shore and saw these indomitable men land, landing in small boats through the waves that dash against the shore, landing without har- bor, but land they did, with their accouterments on and their weapons by their sides. And those who stood upon the shore and saw these men come on thought they could see in their faces, 'Stranger, CMII you tell me the nearest road to Santiago?' [Ap- plause.] " That is the place they were looking for. And the leader of the campaign of one of those regiments shall be the name that I shall place before this Con- vention for the office of Vice-President of the United States. [Applause.] " Gentlemen of the Convention, I know you have been here a long time and that you have had politics in abundance. I know the desire to complete the work of this Convention, but I cannot forbear to say that this occasion has a higher significance than one of politics. The campaign of this year is higher than politics. 548 THEODOEE ROOSEVELT. " In fact, if patriotism could have its way there would be but one political party and but one electoral ticket in any State of the Union, because political duty would enforce it. In many respects the years 1898 and 1899 have been the great years of the Republic. " There is not under any sun or any clime any man or government that cares to insult the flag of the United States. Not one. We are a greater and a broader people on account of these achievements. Uncle Sam has been made a cosmopolitan citizen of the world. No one questions his prowess or his bravery. As the result of these campaigns and as the result of the American spirit, my fellow-citizens, the American soldier, ten thousand miles away from home, with a musket in his hands, says to the aggressor, to those who are in favor of tyranny: 'Halt! Who comes there?' and the same spirit says to the beleaguered hosts of liberty : * Hold the fort for I am coming ! ' Thus says the spirit of Americanism. Now, gentlemen of the Convention, I place before you this distinguished leader of Repub- licanism of the United States, this leader of the aspirations of the people, whose hearts are right, and this leader of the aspirations of the young men of this country. Their hearts and consciences are with this young leader, whom I shall name for the Vice-Presidency of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, of New York." [Loud cheering.] THEODORE ROOSEVELT. MO Senator Depew seconded the nomination of Gov- ernor Roosevelt and said : " Gentlemen of the Convention: Permit me to state to you at the outset that I am not upon the pro- gramme, but I will gladly perform the pleasant duty of announcing that New York came here, as did every other delegation, for Colonel Roosevelt for Vice- President of the United States. [Applause.] "When Colonel Roosevelt expressed to us his wish that he should not be considered we respected it, and we proposed to place in nomination, by our unanimous vote, our Lieutenant-Governor, the Hon. Timothy L. Woodruff. [Applause.] "Now that the Colonel has responded to the call of the Convention and the demand of the people, New York withdraws Mr. Woodruff and puts Roose- velt in nomination. "I had the pleasure of nominating him two years ago for Governor, when all the signs pointed to the loss of New York in the election, but he charged up and down the old State from Montauk Point to Niagara Falls as he went up San Juan Hill [ap- plause], and the Democrats fled before him as the Spaniards had in Cuba. [Applause.] "It is a peculiarity of American life that our men are not born to anything, but they get there after- wards. McKinley, a young soldier, and coming out a Major ; McKinley, a Congressman, and making a tariff; McKinley, a President, elected because he represented the protection of American industries. THEODOKE ROOSEVELT. and McKinley, after four years 7 development, in peace, in war, in prosperity and in adversity, tne greatest President save one or two that this countiy ever had and the greatest ruler in Christendom to-day. [Applause.] " So with Roosevelt we call him * Teddy.' [Ap- plause.] He was the child of New York of New York City the place that you gentlemen from the West think means ' coupons, clubs and eternal dam- nation for everyone.' - Teddy/ this child of Fifth Avenue he was the child of the clubs ; he was the child of the exclusive- ness of Harvard College, and he went West and became a cowboy [applause] ; and then he went into the Navy Department and became Assistant Secre- tary. "He gave an order, and the old chiefs of bureaus came to him and said: 'Why, Colonel, there is no authority and no requisition to burn this powder.' 4 Well,' said the Colonel, * we have got to get ready when war comes, and powder was manufactured tu be burned.' [Applause.] "And the burning of that powder sunk Cervera's fleet outside of Santiago harbor, and the fleet in Manila Bay. [Applause.] "At Santiago a modest voice was heard, exceed- ingly polite, addressing a militia regiment, lying upon the ground, while the Spanish bullets were flying over them. This voice said : ' Get one side, gentlemen, please ; one side, gentlemen, 'please, that my men can get out.' THEODOEE ROOSEVELT. "And when this polite roan got his mei. I he open where they could face the bayonet and : bullet, there was a transformation, and the trans- formation was that the dude had become a cow' the cowboy had become a soldier, the soldier become a hero, and rushing up the hill, pistol in hand [great applause], the polite man shouted to the militiamen lying down: 'Give them hell, I give them hell. 7 [Applciuse.] 'Jlusion has been made by one of the speakers to the fact that the Democratic Convention i meet on the Fourth of July. Great Scott! The Fourth of July ! [Laughter.] On the Fourth of July all the great heroes of the Revolution, all the g heroes of the war of 1812, all the great heroes of Mexico, and the heroes of the war with Spain, who are not dead, will be in processions all over the country, those mighty spirits, but they will not be at the Democratic Convention at Kansas Citv. w [A voice : u And the war of the rebellion."] u And the war of the rebellion. There is one gen- tleman who is detained from there and from the wel- come which they would delight to give him, but he is at present engaged in running a foot race under the blazing sun from the soldiers of the United O States. [Laughter and applause.] " George Washington's spirit will not be there, but George Washington Aguinaldo, if he could, would be there as a welcome delegate. [Laughter and applause.] 552 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. " And then will come the great card of the Con- vention, headed by the great Bryan himself. 'Down with the trusts.' 'Down with the trusts.' And when the applause is over it will be found that the pitchers on the table have been broken by the clashing of the ice within [prolonged laughter and cheering], for that ice will be making merry at five cents a chunk. " I heard a story this is a brand new story. It is the vintage of June, 1900. Most of my stories are more venerable. There was a lady with her husband in Florida last winter. He a consumptive and she a strenuous and tumultuous woman. [Laughter.] Her one remark was, as they sat on the piazza, 'Stop coughing, John.' "John had a hemorrhage. The doctor said he must stay in bed six weeks. His tumultuous wife said : ' Doctor, it is impossible. We are traveling on a time-limited ticket, and we have got several more places to go to.' [Laughter and applause.] So she carried him oft'. " The next station they got to the poor man died, and the sympathetic hotel proprietor said: 'Poor madam, what shall we do?' She said: 'Box him up. I have got a time-limited ticket and several more places to go to.' [Laughter and applause.] "Now, we buried 16 to 1 in a 1896. We put a monument over it weighing as many tons as the Sierra Nevada, when gold was put into the statutes by a Republican Congress and the signature of William McKinley. THEODOKE EOOSEVELT. 553 "Colonel Bryan has been a body-snatcher. He has got the corpse out from under the monument, but it is dead. He has got it in its coffin, carrying it along, as the bereaved widow, because he says: 'I must, I must; I am wedded to this body of sin and death. I must, I must, because I have a time limit which expires in November.' [Laughter and ap- plause.] " I remember when 1 used to go abroad. It is a good thing for a Yankee to go abroad. I used to be ashamed, because everywhere they would s<-iv: 1 What is the matter with the Declaration of Inde- pendence when you have slavery in your land?' " Well, we took slavery out, and now no American is ashamed to go abroad. When I went abroad afterwards the ship was full of merchants buying iron, and buying steel, and buying wool, and buying cotton and all kinds of goods. " Now, when an American goes around the world, what happens to him when he reaches the capital of Japan? He rides on an electric railway made by American mechanics. When he reaches the territory of China he rides under an electric light invented by Mr. Edison, and put up by American artisans. "When he goes over the great railway across Siberia, from China to St. Petersburg, he rides <>n American rails in cars drawn by American locomo- tives. When he goes to Germany he finds our iron and steel climbing over a $2.50 tariff, and thereby scaring the Kaiser most out of his wits. [Laughter.] 554 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. " When he reaches the great Exposition at Paris he finds the French winemaker saying that American wine cannot be admitted there for the purposes of judgment. When he goes to old London, he gets for breakfast California fruit. He gets for luncheon biscuit and bread made of Western flour, and he gets for dinner ' roast beef of old England' taken from the plains of Montana. [Laughter.] His feet rest . on a carpet marked 'Axminster/ made at Yonkers, N. Y. [Renewed laughter.] "Now, my friends, this canvass we are entering upon is a canvass of the future. The past is only for record and for reference. And, thank God, we have a reference and a record. u What is the tendency of the future ? Why this war in South Africa ? Why this hammering at the gates of Pekin ? Why this marching of troops from Asia to Africa ? Why these parades of people from other empires to other lands ? " It is because the surplus productions of the civil- ized countries of modern times are greater than civilization can consume. It is because this overpro- duction goes back to stagnation and to poverty. " The American people now produce two thousand million dollars' worth more than we can consume, and we have met the emergency ; and, by the provi- dence of God, by the statesmanship of William Me- Kinley, and by the valor of Roosevelt and his associates [applause], we have our market in Cuba, we have our market in Porto Rico, we have our THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 555 market in Hawaii, we have our market in the Phil- ippines, and we stand in the presence of eight hun- dred millions of people, with the Pacific as an American lake, and the American artisan producing better and cheaper goods than any country in the world; and, my friends, we go to American labor and to the American farm and say that, with Mc- Kinley for another four years, there is no congestion for America. "Let invention proceed, let production go on, let the mountains bring forth their treasures, let the fac- tories do their best, let labor be employed at the highest wages, because the world is ours, and we have conquered it by Republican principles and by Re- publican persistency in the principles of American industry and of America for Americans. [Ap- plause.] " You and I, my friends you from New England with all its culture and its coldness, and you from the Middle West, who, starting from Ohio, and radiating in every direction, think you are all there is of it ; you from the West who produced, on this platform, a product of New England transformed to the West through New York, that delivered the best presid- ing officer's speech in oratory and all that makes up a great speech that has been heard in many a day in any convention in this country. [Depew referred to Senator Wolcott.] It was a glorious tiling to sci- the fervor of the West and the culture and polish of New England giving us an ammunition wagon from 556 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. which the spellbinder everywhere can draw the pow- der to shoot down opposition East and West and North and South. " Many of you I met in convention four years ago. We all feel what little men we were then compared with what we are to-day. There is not a man here that does not feel 400 per cent, bigger in 1900 than he did in 1896, bigger intellectually, bigger hope- fully, bigger patriotically, bigger in the breast, from the fact that he is a citizen of a country that has become a world power for peace, for civilization and for the expansion of its industries and the products of its labor. " We have the best ticket ever presented. [Ap- plause.] We have at the head of it a Western man with Eastern notions, and we have at the other end an Eastern man with Western character [loud ap- plause] the statesman and the cowboy [laughter], the accomplished man of affairs and the heroic fighter. The man who has proved great as Presi- dent, and the fighter who has proved great as Gov- ernor. [Applause.] We leave this old town simply to keep on shouting and working to make it unani- mous for McKinley and for Roosevelt." The biographical sketches of Roosevelt which accompanied the news of his nomination have failed to give an adequate account of his notable ancestry. This is characteristic, however, of the American spirit, which pays little attention to what a man's father and grandfather were, but a great deal to THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 557 what lie is. Governor Roosevelt's father was a mer- chant of high standing and integrity. It is related of him that he made it a rule to devote only five days a week to his business.' Saturday he gave to charitable work among the poor, and Sunday to religious devotion and rest. President Hayes ap- pointed Governor Roosevelt's father as Collector of the Port of New York, then, as now, the leading federal position in that State, but then of more polit- ical influence than it is now. The Senate, however, declined to confirm him. His brother, Robert B. Roosevelt, uncle of the Governor, and still living, is a Democrat of the gold faction. He has been prominent for many years in New York State. He was the first President of the State Fisheries Com- mission, and has served in Congress and as Minister to the Netherlands. The Governor's grandfather, Cornelius V. S. Roosevelt, was noted in his day as a merchant and philanthropist. He had a brother, James, who long served as Justice of the Supreme Court for the State. Another member of the family of that generation devoted his fortune to the found- ing of Roosevelt Hospital, one of the best institu- tions of the kind in the city. Cornelius V. S. Roose- velt was grandson of Isaac Roosevelt, who was a member of the Kingston Convention of 1777, which framed the first Constitution of the State, and of the Poughkeepsie Convention of 178G, which ratified tin- Constitution of the United States. lie little dreamed that his great-great-grandson would, as 558 THEODOEE ROOSEVELT. Governor, execute the Constitution he helped to frame, and as Vice-President help to maintain the Federal Constitution which he, with others, ratified. Isaac Roosevelt was one of the leading citizens of his day, and served on the Committee of 100 which undertook to restore order in the city in the trouble- some time of 1775. He was for several years Presi- dent of the Bank of New York, the oldest in the city. One of his sons was a Director of the Mer- chants' Bank and prominent in the sugar trade. Another son, Nicholas, was an inventor and asso- ciated with Fulton in the first practical application of steam to navigation. Another Roosevelt of a more recent generation was a noted builder of church organs. The Roosevelt family dates back to 1648, and has been distinguished during all that period. The Governor, however, is the first to achieve fame in war and literature, as well as pol- itics. The first of the family in this country is said to have been Claes Marten eze von Roosevelt, or otherwise Nicholas, son of Martin, of Rosefield, a native of Holland. Theodore Roosevelt's father, Theodore, married Martha, daughter of James and Martha Oswald Bulloch, of Roswell, Ga., both of whom were descendants from Revolutionary stock. Of such blood came Governor Roosevelt, candidate for the Vice-Presidency of the United States. As a little fellow he was delicate. As he played with the children of his neighbors of fashionable Murray Hill, he realized that he was not as strong as they and the THEODOEE ROOSEVELT. 559 will that has since proven itself and the courage of San Juan Hill were in him. He set his jaw, and from " follow my leader " where he was the last boy to being the pathfinder in daring risk-neck schemes he pushed his way. He began to grow strong. He was educated at home by private tutors and yet to-day there is no more ardent believer in the public schools. He was a hard student, the kind going to work with a will, soon through, and then out in the air, romping and playing with the other boys. As he grew older he took up gymnastics and boxing, and by his indomitable purpose learned to ride a horse in a way none could emulate, and to take rough knocks and give them with equal sturcli- ness and courage. He was the defender of those less strong than he, when he saw them abused, and a comrade on equal terms with the boys of equal strength. He had conquered sickness and was robust and healthy. Then he went to Harvard, where he was distin- guished as a clean-minded scholar, a manly young man and an athlete. The taste for letters that was there begun and the ability to tell the truth as he saw it, and to see all that was going on, made him an editor of the Harvard Advocate. He graduated from Harvard in 1880, not at the head of his cl. but above the middle; has since been an honor to his Alma Mater, and became early one of the heroes of the other colleges, where the students and t-vcn the alumni are apt to be late in appreciation of the fellows from other institutions. 560 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Following Ms graduation Theodore Roosevelt spent a year abroad. Immediately on his return home he entered the political arena of the metro- politan City of New York. He might have sat in any one of the clubs to which he was eligible and dawdled away the hours. He did not neglect the clubs, but was popular with the members and at the same time was a man with a purpose and an honor- able ambition. He went out among men, shook hands, and at times, when necessary, exchanged blows with his fellows, so that while he was still a very young man he had friends and admirers, not only at the club but numbered among those he knew and liked the men who drove trucks, street cars, omnibuses; the men of the docks, with shoulders, perhaps, broader than his, the fine sun- bronzed fellows who go out to sea, the pilots and tugmen, the men of the shops and the stores. With them he learned the truth that " A man's a man for a' that." He was elected to the Assembly of his State, and it was not long before his opponents in political belief knew that he was present. Even the men of his own party who did not agree with him, soon realized that the troublesome " whirlwind of a fellow" was absolutely honest of purpose and as a rule in the right. He was re-elected in the following two years. He was for honesty in politics and was the first to introduce a Civil Service bill in the Leg- islature, which became a law in 1883. Men began to talk about Roosevelt, and those who THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 561 did not like him said severe things. He had won his spurs, for he had made bitter enemies and firm friends. Theodore Roosevelt was an independent candidate for Mayor of the City of New York in 1886, backed by the Republican party. He had as an opponent a venerable citizen of many good works, and his youth told against him with the voters. He suffered his first defeat at the hands of Abram S. Hewitt, and it was an honorable repulse, a great compliment and mark of trust on the part of the people, for he was given a surprisingly big vote. Men who are fond of the fellow who is not afraid had begun to see in Roosevelt a leader, a man of firm and earnest prin- ciple, the sort of man men admire, and the better they knew him the more they became attached to him. Theodore Roosevelt was more than the politician staying at home mending broken fences. From time to time in the days of his official vacations he visited the Great West, where he had a ranch. One of the Rough Riders who went up San Juan Hill with him tells a story on the candidate worth repeating. He says : " When I was about sixteen, a big fellow on an easy-going horse came to the po^t- office one day, and asked if their was any mail for Roosevelt. The postmaster was my father and he enjoyed a joke, like most folks, and he says to the big man wearing ' specks' : ' Do you mean The Hon- orable Theodore Roosevelt from New York?' 1 That's the man/ said Teddy. 'Well,' says father, 562 THEODOEE ROOSEVELT. 'such a distinguished gentleman should bring his credentials.' 'Here they are,' says Teddy, not put out a bit and pulling a handful of letters from his pocket. 'Thank you,' says father, ' there is some mail for you here, but as I did not know when you would come I put it away in a safe corner, and if you'll wait I'll bring it out.' Roosevelt was wiping off his glasses and father goes to the back of the store and makes a remark to a friend and then he began sorting out the tenderfoot's mail, handing to him a letter at a time. When Tie was through a change had been made in horses, for father had a dead ringer of Teddy's nag, and the nastiest beast thereabouts. "Well, Teddy thanked father and went up to his nag, which was tied to a post. It looked just as sleepy as a sheep. Teddy takes a flying leap into the saddle and the boys let loose, like Indians. Then the beast began to buck and as it did not throw the big fellow, though it did send his glasses flying, it went through every trick a bad broncho knows, until it tried to roll on him, but the man was off and on as the beast rose, and then Teddy put his spurs deep into the horse's sides and away they went. Some time later the Honorable Theodore Roosevelt came back in a cloud of dust, him astride, and it stopped with a snort, or rather sigh of relief, at the front of the store. Then we christened him 'Teddy.' We brought out his own horse and father expressed his regret that the new neighbor THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 503 living about fifteen miles distant had lost his glasses. " 'Don't mind,' says Teddy, of the plains and the young men of fortune of the East were all eager to serve in Roosevelt's Rough Riders. 566 . THEODORE ROOSEVELT. President Harrison in 1889 appointed Governor Roosevelt a member of the National Civil Service Commission, and he was retained upon it by Presi- dent Cleveland until he resigned, owing to the fact that he was not in touch with the other members upon the larger questions, and accepted the offer made by Mayor Strong of a place upon the New York City Board of Police Commission. He was speedily chosen president, and then began a work that made him only less famous than the charge up San Juan Hill. He was a terror not only to evil- doers but to the police themselves. Under his rule the department was brought out of its happy-go- lucky methods and inefficiency and elevated to a height that had never before been reached, and has not since been retained. Governor Roosevelt is an all-around man. He is devoted to outdoor sports, but he is also a scholar and a writer. He has written tales of adventure .and also history. In 1892 he published a "History of the Naval War of 1812." It was this work that as said to have influenced Secretary Long to appoint Mr. Roosevelt Assistant Secretary of the Navy, which place he accepted in 1897. In this position he insisted on making preparations for the war cloud that was then hanging over us. 'There was too much fighting blood in Roosevelt's veins for him to occupy a position remote from the front when a war was on, so, despite protests of friends, he resigned the Assistant Secretaryship of THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 5G7 the Navy and was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel in the First United States Cavalry, more popular! v known as the Rough Riders. Roosevelt's own per- sonality brought recruits to the regiment from every corner of the country, and men they were after his own heart ready for any deed of bravery. Roosevelt could have been Colonel of the regi- ment, but insisted that his friend and comrade to-dav, Major-General Wood, a graduate of West Point, should be the leader and himself took second in command. The two worked in absolute harmony and formed of their recruits an ideal fighting regi- ment. The young men from the East, who had been accustomed to lives of ease and elegance, but as ath- letes had good and well trained muscles, took readily to their work and labored for all that was in them. The men from the plains, accustomed to be a law unto themselves, were soon broken into the idea of discipline and the propriety and necessity for it. There were long weeks of training and drilling, and when the time came for sending the troops t<> San- tiago the men of the Rough Riders were seasoned and fit. The story of their fighting is one of the bright pages in our history of valor and dash. Cavalry predestined for infantry work did it well. The first man to die on the American side in the war with Spain was a Rough Rider, the son of one of New York's oldest and most influential families^ an athlete at college and a soldier in the fu-M Hamilton Fish. It was in the battle of Las Qu 568 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. mas, just as the Americans were deploying, having discovered the enemy, that he fell pierced through the heart and a minute later Captain Capron met the same fate. From the rank and file there came exclamations which would not look well in print, but are said to be a necessary accompaniment of battle, and then there was the order from the commander to quit swearing and "shoot," so well obeyed that two thousand Spaniards were routed by half their number. Roosevelt succeeded Colonel Wood in command of the First Volunteer U. S. Cavalry and especially distinguished himself in the fighting about Santiago, winning the undying love of his soldiers and the esteem of his countrymen. He was especially con- spicuous in the charge up San Juan Hill. The Spaniards were strongly intrenched there and had with them the larger part of the sharp-shooters of their army. It was desperate and dangerous work to climb the long steep slope, facing the rain of Mauser bullets. Foreign military men, accompanying our army, as they saw the American troops swarming up the hill, agreed that it could not be done and that it was murder to send men on such an errand, especially as they were not protected by heavy-firing infantry. They did not know our troops and their officers. Up the hill Regulars, Rough Riders and other Vol- unteers charged and at the head of the Rough Riders was Colonel Theodore Roosevelt on horse- back, the most conspicuous of the many marks the THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 5G 9 sharp-shooters could see. His horse was shot under him. He and his men with the other troops drove the Spaniards from their stronghold, and the Colonel in a hand-to-hand fight at the top of the hill laid low one Spaniard, something few officers have ever done in modern warfare. Koosevelt was lead- ing his troops. There could be no possible strategy necessitating his presence in the rear. There was a charge to be made and Roosevelt lead it. Then there were the long days culminating in the surrender of the Spaniards, the appearance of yellow and intermittent fevers, dysentery and diseases that waste and destroy more than the enemies' bullets. Then followed the Colonel's famous suor es tion to oo the War Department that the boys be sent home, for their work was complete and they were dying for want of the air and water of the temperate zone. This thoughtful ness of his men and far-sight- edness was a little bit unmilitary, but characteristic of Koosevelt, who is not an ardent admirer of red tape, although he proved a disciplinarian and him- self amenable to discipline before and during the fighting days. Roosevelt and his Rou^h Riders, with the other O ' troops, were sent to Montauk, L. L, to recuperate in a land of cool ocean breezes, where the sound of the surf lulled to sleep men weary with fever and the salt waters invigorated those who were convalescing, a place in the Shinnecock hills, neighboring the >]>lrn- did summer homes of the rich men of the East 570 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Uncle Sam gave to his brave boys a long vacation with pay at the seashore, and they grew strong and prepared for the duties of peace at home. There the Rough Riders were honorably discharged. Colonel Roosevelt was the only possible candidate for the Governorship of the Empire State, for the people wanted him, just as in Philadelphia the people, as represented by their delegates, insisted that they must have, and did get, "Teddy." As Governor of New York Colonel Roosevelt proved himself the same active, honest man, hated by thieves and their kind, but loved by those he served the people. He recognized himself their servant and was proud of the high office. Governor Roosevelt has been a hard student ever since he left college, and numerous interesting and valuable volumes come from his pen. Among the number are "The Naval War of 1812"; "Hunting Trips of a Ranchman," and two volumes of a similar character; two volumes of biography, having Thomas H. Benton and Gouverneur Morris for their subjects ; " History of the City of New York "; two volumes on political topics, and a four-volume history entitled " The Wild West," his most important literary work. His experience in the Santiago campaign has also been detailed in graphic style in "The Rough Riders," published last year. Colonel Roosevelt has been married twice. His first wife was Miss Alice Lee, of Boston ; the second Miss Edith Carow, of New York. He is the father THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 571 of six children, ranging from 16 to 3 years of age, His domestic life is ideal Whether ensconced in winter quarters at Albany or New York, or at the famous Roosevelt summer home at Oyster Bay on Long Island, the leader of the Rough Riders is an indulgent father and romps with his children with as much zest as the youngest of them. The young- sters are known as the Roosevelt half-dozen, and all reflect in some manner the paternal characteristics. The oldest girl is Alice, tall, dark and serious look- ing. She rides her father's Cuban campaign horse with fearlessness and grace. The next olive branch is Theodore, Jr., or " Young Teddy," the idol of his father's heart and a genuine chip of the old block. Young " Teddy " owns a trusty shotgun and dreams of some day shooting bigger game than his father ever did. He also rides a pony of his own. Alice, the oldest girl, is nearly 16. She is the only child by the first Mrs. Roosevelt, "Young Teddy," the present Mrs. Roosevelt's oldest child, is 13. Then there are Kermit, 11; Ethel, 9; Archibald, 0, and Quentin, of the tender age of 3. CHAPTER XXX. THEODORE ROOSEVELT CONTINUED. Succeeds to the Presidency on the Assassination of President McKin- ley Adopts Policy of his Predecessor Pronounces for Purity in Politics. BY A. J. MUNSON. GOVERNOR ROOSEVELT was nominated for the Vice-Presidency against his wishes. He did not decline to be a candidate be- cause he considered the position trivial or un- worthy, but because he believed he could render the party and the country better service as Gov- ernor of New York. When his wishes were disre- garded and the nomination thrust upon him, he accepted it gracefully and in terms that were a guarantee that he would bring^ to the position that earnestness of purpose that had characterized all his public work. In his letter of acceptance he said: "The people are now to decide whether they shall go forward along the path of prosperity at home and high honor abroad, or whether they will turn their backs upon what has been done during the past three years; whether they will 572 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 573 plunge their country into an abyss of misery and disaster or what is even worse than misery and disaster of shame. I feel that we have a right to appeal, not merely to Republicans, but to all good citizens, no matter what may have been their party affiliations in the past, and ask them on the strength of the record that under Presi- dent McKinley has been made during the past three years, and on the strength of the threat im- pliedjn what was done at Kansas City a few days ago, to stand shoulder to shoulder with us in per- petuating the conditions under which we have reached at home a degree of prosperity never be- fore attained in the history of the nation, and under which abroad we have put the American flag on a level where it never before in the history of the country has been placed." Roosevelt engaged in the campaign with his usual force and vigor and contributed in no un- certain degree to the success of the party. His campaigning tours extended over the greater part of the country and were marked everywhere by popular enthusiasm. He spoke in definite terms, firing his oratorical broadsides with a boldness and directness of aim that carried conviction. Early in the campaign numerous bands of "Rough Riders" were organized throughout the country in honor of Roosevelt's services in the war. Men from all ranks of life joined these bands that were conspicuous in the many political rallies. 574 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. His brief incumbency of the Vice-Presidency was uneventful. He presided over the Senate during the winter session, where by his dignified f and courteous treatment of the Senators he gained* their friendship and esteem. When the session ended Vice-President Roose- velt went on a vacation to Colorado to hunt the cougar. A month was spent in this way, a month of peril, hardship and exposure, during which Mr. Roosevelt personally killed fourteen of these dangerous animals. The skulls of these he sent to the Smithsonian Institute at Washington, that they might add to the scientific data of this dis- tinctly American animal. Returning from the hunt he enjoyed a short summer of rest, the first in many years, from which he was called in the hour of national sor- row to the highest position in the nation. The day President McKinley was shot Mr^ Roosevelt was at Isle La Motte, Vermont, where he delivered an address. He had just finished speaking when he was informed of the tragedy. The news unnerved him and he would have fallen but for timely support. When asked to speak he said: "I am so inexpressibly grieved and shocked and horrified that I can say nothing." Mr. Roosevelt hastened to the side of the wounded President, where he remained until the physicians thought the President out of danger. THEODORE BOOSEVELT. 575 On this assurance he went" to the Adirondacks to rest. Here a little after sundown on the day the President died a guide found him and brought him the sad news. Mr. Roosevelt started at once for Buffalo. At Albany he was met by Secretary of State Hay who officially informed him of the death of the President. He reached Buffalo the next day, where, in the library of the Wilcox home, and in the presence of the members of the Cabinet, he took the oath of office of President; Judge Hazel administering the oath. After sign- ing the parchment he said to those present and through them to the nation: "In this hour of deep and terrible bereavement, I wish to state that it shall by my aim to continue absolutely unbroken the policy of President Mc- Kinley for the peace and prosperity and honor of our beloved country. " He then extended an earnest invitation to the members of the Cabinet to continue in office that the pledges he had made might the more effective- ly be fulfilled. After a brief consultation among themselves the members of the Cabinet assured him they would remain in office. President Roosevelt's action in adopting the policy of the dead President and retaining the Cabinet officers, met with the hearty approval of the people. The wisdom of the act was mani- fested in the fact that the sudden change of Ex- 57G THEODORE ROOSEVELT. ecutives created no confusion in the financial and commercial markets. The people had absolute confidence in their new President. Among the first things that President Roosevelt did was to administer a light snub to the spoils politicians. He told them that if they wanted him to appoint their men to federal offices they must bring men to him who have not only the ability required for the positions they seek, but -whose records as men are clean. Party affiliation was not to be enough. If good men could not be found in the Republican party, he should not hesitate to seek them in the Democratic party. Acting on this declaration he appointed an Ala- bama Democrat to a district judgeship. He called Booker T. Washington to the White House that he might consult him about the political con- ditions in the South, especially as these conditions affect the negro race, and is reported to have said to him: "If I cannot make the Republican party in the South the dominant party, I can at least make it respectable. I can appoint good men to office, even though I have to select Democrats." President Roosevelt carried the same energy and industry into his work as the Chief Executive as he had manifested in all the positions he had held. He went to his desk at 9 :30 in the morning and remained there until 4:30 in the afternoon, with THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 577 but an intermission of an hour at noon. During this time any honest citizen had access to him. A correspondent described his activities during his first few days as President, and before he took up his residence in the White House, as follows: * 'President Roosevelt is out of bed by 7 o'clock and as a rule is at the breakfast table shortly after 8 o'clock. He leaves for the White House as soon as breakfast is over. Once he is in his big working room things begin to buzz. Mr. Wm. Loeb, who is in reality his secretary, his stenographer, and his confidential friend, hands him the letters necessary for him to see. These he reads, dictates replies and sees visitors at the same time." Theodore Roosevelt was the youngest man to be called to the great office of President, but to that office he brought the studious thought, the ripe scholarship, the practical experience, the keen insight into human nature and the wide acquaint- ance with men in public and private life, that would well become one much older than he. Add to these qualities his abhorrence of wrong in public life, his virile stand for right and his quiet Christ- ian faith, and the people find in him a man who is not only qualified to perform the duties of the office, but on whom they are confident the high honor has fallen to be glorified in good deeds.