William McKinley, the twenty-fifth President of the United States, was a large man with a high forehead, graying hair at the temples, and a cleft chin. Conservative in every sense of the word, McKinley was viewed as warm, sociable, and sincere. He appealed to voters as a deeply religious man, who had declared his long-standing faith with the Methodist Episcopal Church at the age of ten, and as a devoted husband, who conducted his Presidential campaign from the front porch of his home in Canton, Ohio in order to remain close to his invalid wife. Though not of a brilliant mind, William McKinley was a shrewd politician. With the help of millionaire Marcos Alonzo Hanna, McKinley was able to secure the financial backing of the richest and most powerful businessmen in the United States. His victory over his charismatic opponent, William Jennings Bryan, was less about the campaign issue of a dollar based on the gold or silver standard than it was about the power of the dollar in winning elections. During his years in office, President McKinley proved himself to be a popular and effective leader. He was easily re-elected to a second term, but gunned down by an assassin only six months after his second inauguration.
William McKinley was born January 29, 1843 in Niles, Trumbull County, Ohio. He was the seventh child of nine born to Nancy and William McKinley, a mildly wealthy couple who owned and operated a local iron foundry. When William Jr. was only nine, his family moved to Poland, Ohio where they purchased another iron foundry. William received his elementary education from private schools; in Poland he was enrolled at Union Seminary. In 1859 he enrolled at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania, but dropped out the following year because of illness. He returned to Poland where he taught in a local school and worked at the local post office.
When Civil War broke out in 1861, William McKinley joined the 23rd Ohio Volunteers as a private. Private McKinley distinguished himself at the Battle of Antietam in Maryland and was promoted to second lieutenant in September 1862. By the time the war ended, William McKinley had advanced to the rank of brevet major.
After the war, William McKinley moved to Youngstown, Ohio where he took a job in a law office and began to study law. He studied for a term at Albany Law School, New York before returning to Ohio and being admitted to the bar in 1867. He set up practice in Canton, Ohio.
Willam McKinley ran as the Republican candidate for prosecuting attorney of Stark County in 1869, and won despite the district's large Democrat population. He served one two-year term before losing a bid for re-election and resuming his private practice in Canton.
On January 25, 1871 William McKinley married Ida Saxton, the daughter of a wealthy Ohio banker. The couple had two daughters, but both of whom died before reaching the age of four. In the wake of the death of her second daughter, Ida McKinley developed epilepsy and phlebitis. She was given to occasional seizures, and could not walk without the aid of a cane for the remainder of her life.
In 1876 William McKinley won a seat in the United States House of Representatives where he served the better part of seven terms. In 1882 his victory over Democratic candidate Jonathan H. Wallace was contested. The election commission found in favor of Wallace, and McKinley was forced to step down for nine months. McKinley was re-elected the following year. In the House, McKinley supported legislation for civil service reform (a force bill designed to ensure the rights of African Americans to vote), spoke out on behalf of labor in labor and business disputes, and favored the silver standard over that of gold. McKinley served on the Judiciary Committee in 1877 and on the Ways and Means Committee in charge of Arthur's succession to President Garfield in 1881. As chairman of House Committee on Ways and Means in 1889 and 1890, McKinley sponsored the McKinley Tariff bill. The bill was designed to dramatically raise the protective tariff. When the bill became law in 1890, prices shot up across the board, making Republicans extremely unpopular with voters. McKinley, along with other leading Republicans, were voted out of office in 1890.
McKinley returned to Ohio where he served two consecutive terms as governor. During McKinley's administration, a number of labor riots forced him to call out the Ohio militia. The uprising was put down, and McKinley set up a state commission to arbitrate labor disputes. Very early on in McKinley's term as governor, Mark Hanna, the leader of the Ohio Republican Party, began to actively campaign for McKinley's nomination to the Presidency.
William McKinley was chairman of the Republican National Convention in 1892. He was a strong supporter of the nomination of President Harrison for re-election and took an active role in the President's campaign. Mark Hanna held an unofficial pre-campaign for McKinley in 1892. The trial run proved successful, and McKinley did remarkably well for someone who was not officially on the ballot.
In 1896 McKinley served again as chairman of the Republican National Convention, but this time his name was officially put on the ballot, and he secured the nomination. Garret A. Hobart, a close friend of McKinley's, received the Vice Presidential nomination. The Democrats nominated William Jennings Bryan for President and Arthur Sewall for Vice President. A new party on the scene, the Populists, also nominated Bryan, but in order to distinguish themselves from the Democrats, they nominated Tom Watson instead of Sewall for Vice President.
The main issue of the election of 1896 was the question between gold and silver. Bryan, a brilliant showman and impassioned speech maker, supported silver with an almost religious fervor. He secured his nomination at the Democratic National Convention with a speech that ended with the line "Thou shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." In this very same speech Bryan called for the minting of 16 silver dollars for every one dollar on the gold standard, and "16:1" became a party slogan. During the campaign, Bryan did a tremendous amount of traveling and speech making. He constructed his platform around the argument that the country was in an economic depression. He believed drastic measures were needed to avoid a total economic collapse.
William McKinley conducted his campaign in quite a different way. McKinley abandoned his advocacy of silver and took up the cause of gold; in doing so he was able to secure the support of conservative Democrats and big business. McKinley conducted his campaign from the front porch of his house in Canton, Ohio. He gave relatively few speeches, but those that he did give were covered extensively by the national newspapers. McKinley's more reserved speeches gave the impression of being informal and off the cuff, but the rallies at which his speeches were given were scripted down to the smallest detail. A deal Mark Hanna made with railroad bosses enabled the Republicans to have complete control over the time schedule that trains into Canton kept, and they were therefore able keep the rallies on a rigid time schedule. In his speeches McKinley held that the nation was experiencing a time of prosperity and that it did not need to be manipulated by the government or stimulated by switching to a silver standard. McKinley won the election by a comfortable margin in the popular vote, and by 271 - 176 in the electoral college. William McKinley became the twenty-fifth President of the United States on March 4, 1897.
The economy slumped during the first few months of the McKinley Administration. President McKinley dealt with the situation by supporting the passage of the projectionist Dingley Tariff Act. Though the economy's subsequent recovery had little to do with the tariff's passage, President McKinley proved more than willing to take full credit.
By 1897 Cuba had been fighting a war for its independence from Spain for some time. A recent rash of yellow journalism, spearheaded by William Randolf Hearst, was assaulting the American public daily with sensationalist accounts of Spanish atrocities in Cuba. During his first year in office, President McKinley was under constant pressure to declare war on Spain, but he resisted, believing that the United States forces were not ready for war. On February 15, 1898, the U.S.S. Maine exploded while sailing in the Havana Harbor. Though the cause of the explosion was never proven, the public held Spain responsible. President McKinley found that he could no longer resist the pressure for war. In mid-April 1898, he asked Congress for a declaration of war against Spain; it was granted on April 25, 1898.
Victory came quickly and easily to the United States. Under the command of Commodore George Dewey, the Asiatic Squadron of the United States Navy destroyed the bulk of the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Manila Bay. A cease fire was reached in August, and a treaty was signed in December. The Treaty of Paris, signed on December 10, 1898, provided for the independence of Cuba and a ceding of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam to the United States. The treaty also required Spain to pay the United States $20 million in reparations.
Rather than grant independence to the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam, President McKinley decided to treat the islands as possessions of the United States. The President justified his actions by declaring that his intentions were to "uplift, civilize and Christianize" the inhabitants of the islands, which was slightly ironic considering the large Catholic populations of all of these former Spanish colonies. In 1899 a rebel faction of the Filipino population, led by Emilio Aguinaldo, declared a guerrilla war on the United States. The uprising was finally put down in 1902, but the effort proved more costly than the Spanish-American War. The United States increased its territory further when it annexed Hawaii in 1898 and arranged a deal with Germany to split the Samoan Islands in 1899.
In China, a group known as the Boxers looked to rid China of foreigners. The Boxer Rebellion of 1900 destroyed American businesses in China and resulted in the deaths of several American missionaries and delegates. President McKinley sent United States troops over to China where, in a combined effort with troops from Japan, Russia, and Germany, the uprising was put down, and the safety of foreign businessmen trading in China was secured. President McKinley declared an "Open Door Policy" with China, which meant that all the nations of the world had an equal and unrestricted right to trade in China.
President McKinley easily won the nomination of the Republican National Convention in 1900. Vice President Garret A. Hobart had died in 1899, and the Vice Presidential spot on the Republican ticket was filled by Theodore Roosevelt. The Democrats re-nominated William Jennings Bryan for President and nominated Adlai Stevenson for Vice President. The silver/gold question was no longer an issue in 1900, and Bryan campaigned against the imperialistic foreign policies of the McKinley Administration. President McKinley defeated Bryan by a sizable margin in the popular vote, and by 292 - 155 in the electoral college.
In a speech given on September 5, 1901 at the Pan-American Conference in Buffalo, New York, President McKinley declared that he no longer supported high protective tariffs, but favored instead mutual trade agreements that would provide for a reciprocated tariff reduction between friendly nations. President McKinley also spoke on the need to curb monopolies in big business. The next day, as President McKinley was greeting people at the Pan-American Conference, an anarchist by the name of Leon Czolgosz approached him and fired two shots into his chest and stomach. President McKinley was rushed to the emergency medical facilities on the convention grounds and then taken to Milbourn House, the place where he was staying while attending the conference in Buffalo. President McKinley survived for a few days in stable condition, but took a turn for the worse when the wound became infected. President William McKinley died on the morning of September 14, 1901.
