McKINLEY AS A CAMPAIGNER.
It does not appear that William McKinley, at the beginning of his career
as a politician, or at any other time in his life, endeavored to project
himself into any sort of leadership. His forcefulness was innate, it is
true, but the motive power, always, that surcharged his work was the
demand of occasion. When he became a candidate for Congress for the
first time, it was because he was needed from his district to do
something. That he did earnestly, energetically and thoroughly for his
immediate constituents. But, in Congress, the environment of national
affairs brought to him national work. It presented itself to him as
being the man for that, and he took it up with the same earnestness of
purpose and the same commendable self-reliance that possessed his nature
in all things. He went at it thinking only of what was needed, his duty
in the premises being a matter of course, just as he quietly became a
private soldier when the country needed every able bodied and faithful
man that it could get to do the work of war.
In the harness McKinley did, simply, always that which was for the best,
as he saw it, and always in the strongest and best manner possible to
him, and his career has exhibited the fact that what he thought was
best, and what he was able to do, was ever valuable to those interests,
including himself. In this he exemplified the principle that to do right
is to do that which is for the best.
Being in politics on the most commendable plane McKinley was a
politician of shrewdness without cunning and he campaigned in the
strongest way without descending to questionable methods. His power as a
campaigner was of the kind that does its work steadily, unfalteringly
and irresistibly, straightforwardly and fairly.
Thus, in 1876, when McKinley was first set forth as a candidate for
Congress, he had three rivals from his own county for the nomination,
but the choice fell upon him at the first ballot, over all other
candidates. Being elected, he was rechosen at each recurring convention
and election for fourteen years, and always representing the district in
which his county was, though it was not always the same district
otherwise, for his opponents, not relishing the prominent and important
place that he had taken in Congress, gerrymandered the district three
times in that fourteen years hoping thus to defeat him, but in that they
failed signally until the last time that game was played, but the defeat
was only of a temporary character and was pitifully unsuccessful in
keeping McKinley out of politics.
The first attempt to change the McKinley district resulted in the
formation of a district that would have naturally presented a majority
for the opposition of 1,800. But this McKinley overcame with a majority
of 1,300.
In 1882, when McKinley’s party suffered everywhere and especially in his
state, this resourceful man managed nevertheless to hold his own quite
safely.
In 1884 the opposition gerrymandered the district again, but McKinley
was not to be downed, and came to the front with a majority of 1,500.
In 1890, the very year in which the McKinley bill became a law, the
district being again gerrymandered, and Stark County—that in which
McKinley lived—having been districted with other counties that gave a
majority for the opposition of 2,000, and McKinley’s opponent being
ex-Lieutenant Warwick, a prominent and exceedingly popular man, in the
fierce battle that ensued McKinley was defeated by 363 votes. The
figures showed, however, that the vote was the fullest ever cast in the
counties that now composed the district, and that McKinley received
2,500 more votes than had been cast for President Harrison in 1888, when
Harrison was elected.
This defeat took McKinley out of Congress, but not out of public life.
McKinley was thirty-four years old when he entered Congress. At that
time Samuel J. Randall was the Democratic leader and Speaker and James
A. Garfield at the head of the Republicans. The new Congressman from
Ohio soon attracted attention, and when he left the House fourteen years
afterwards he was the Republican leader by virtue of his position as
chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. The McKinley bill, which in
the latter capacity he urged through Congress, at first met with
disapproval by the people and was practically rejected at the next
Presidential election when Cleveland was successful. Four years
afterward, however, the voters saw their mistake and William McKinley
was elected President on the identical issue which it was supposed had
ended his political fortunes in 1892.
With fair intent, youthful ardor, a large and valuable fund of
information on economic problems, painstaking industry, fidelity to
political convictions, commanding address, parliamentary and diplomatic
tact, dignified demeanor and philosophic turn, Congress was a wide and
fertile field for the work of William McKinley. Being always at his
best, because of healthfulness of mind, body and motive, he grew rapidly
in strength, popularity and respect among the members of that body, and
especially among his party associates. The appreciation of his ability
and industry was quickly and continuously illustrated by the assignments
that came to him of places upon various and important committees. On the
floor of the House of Representatives he took rank early in his
membership among the ablest debaters, by reason of his sincere interest
in public questions, remarkable facility and power in the marshalling of
facts, his forceful logic, fascinating rhetoric, fairness to opposition,
freedom from excitement and bitterness, readiness and keenness in
repartee and a palpable evidence at all times of cool reserve strength.
In it all, however, he never spoke without occasion nor without full
knowledge of his subject. He ornamented and exhausted the subject matter
with which he happened to be occupied. Depth and honesty of conviction
were apparent in his earnestness and his expression, lucidity of thought
and easy clearness of detail gave delight when he spoke to friend and
foes alike.
It was particularly fortunate to Mr. McKinley and the country that upon
entering Congress as a young man he was placed upon the Ways and Means
Committee that proved congenial as well as specially adaptable to him.
Here, under the tutelage of such chairmen as Kelley and Garfield, it was
natural that with his bent he should reach the chairmanship of that
great committee himself. It was thus that the opportunity came to him
for the exercise of his special genius in tariff matters. His first
speech in Congress was on the tariff and his last discussed the same
theme.
From the beginning of his public career McKinley was the unfaltering,
sturdy, consistent and intelligent advocate of the principle of
protection to American industries by tariff duties imposed with the
purpose of keeping the cheap labor products of European and Asiatic
countries out of our vast and desirable American markets. He was not, as
was Garfield, for such protection as would lead to ultimate free trade.
He believed that free trade is a dream of theorists, which would bring
industrial ruin and poverty to the United States if it were put into
practice, benefiting no class but the importing merchants of the
seaboard cities. He had no patience with tariffs formed to “afford
incidental protection.”
Tariff bills, he thought, should aim primarily at protection, and tariff
legislation should be scientific and permanent, with a view to the
continuous prosperity of the industrial classes. This was the chief aim
of the McKinley bill, passed when he was chairman of the Ways and Means
Committee. No doubt other minds in both House and Senate helped to frame
that measure, but McKinley’s thought and work were on every page of it.
When the Republican party was defeated in 1892, largely through public
misapprehension of that measure and before it had received a fair trial,
McKinley was one of the few Republican leaders who continued to breast
the adverse current and who never faltered a moment in the faith that
the tide would set back to protection.
Others wanted to change front and abandon the high protection principle.
He refused, and proceeded to realign his party on the old line of
battle. He set out to educate public sentiment anew, and during his
memorable stumping tour of 1894 he made 367 speeches and spoke in the
States of Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa,
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama,
Mississippi, Louisiana, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio.
For eight weeks he averaged seven speeches a day, ranging in length from
ten minutes to an hour.
In these speeches McKinley addressed himself to the country upon the
demerits of the Wilson tariff bill, then on its passage, which had been
denounced by President Cleveland, who belonged to the same political
party as did its author, and who was of the opposite political party to
that of McKinley, as “a product of perfidy and dishonor,” but who
permitted it to become a law without his signature. At the same time
McKinley spoke in favor of the underlying principle of the act of 1880.
This latter bill, of which McKinley was the father and which bore his
name, occupied the entire time of the first session of the Fifty-first
Congress, and in all that terrific debate McKinley stood as the special
champion of the measure. Its passage was a monument to his ability,
patience and endurance, and to his great power as a debater.
By 1884 he had won the title of “Champion of American Protection,” and
in 1888 his committee report was delivered, which headed the “Mills
Tariff Bill,” and that, with the speech delivered by McKinley at the
time, became potent factors in the campaign that followed and in which
Harrison was elected President and the political complexion of Congress
was changed to one of harmony with the administration.
After his defeat for Congress McKinley remained quietly at his home,
where he was again called from its privacy to consider the question of
his nomination for the Governorship of Ohio. Governor Campbell had
frequently boasted that he had made Ohio a permanent Democratic State,
but McKinley dispelled his illusion. The Republican State convention was
held at Columbus in June, 1891, and at it William McKinley was nominated
Republican candidate for the Governorship, and the following November
was elected Governor by 21,000 majority.
It was a typical “campaign of education” that McKinley made at this time
and in it he visited eighty-six counties and delivered one hundred and
thirty addresses. In all of that arduous campaign, as well as the many
others that he made during his political life, McKinley’s speeches were
always models of unaffected art. There was never anything that even so
much as gave a hint or suggestion of “playing to the gallery.” There
were no funny declamations, no pandering to anything or anybody. He
stood strong, self-reliant, comfortably poised, well at ease; he spoke
with an evenly-modulated and clear voice; his enunciation was distinct
and his words short and simple. There was truth in sentences and
sincerity in his declarations. Everybody who heard him believed what he
said. He had the happy faculty of talking to all manner of persons in a
way that commanded respect with awe. He was easily approached—made those
who spoke to him feel “at home.” He gave comradeship naturally and
commanded perfect respect in such a way that the visitor, the highest or
humblest, never felt. Beside his magnetism as a politician and an
orator, there was a personal charm about the man that made him as
attractive to the many as he was admirable as a leader among his
partisans. He won distinction for his uniform courtesy to men and
deference to women. He had the same power to win men to him that
Napoleon had in making himself the idol of his soldiers. Simple in his
tastes, quiet in his manner, firm in his stand for a principle he
believed to be right, he was ever the most courteous of men in public
life. He made few enemies and held all of his friends. His patience was
equal to his physical endurance and he could travel, speak, shake hands
all day and yet sit down in the evening and explain to an associate the
mysteries or intricacies of a tariff schedule or be a charming companion
in a social circle. But in all his sociability there was a purity of
speech and thought that made it impossible for even a thoughtless man of
rough habits to introduce a suggestion of coarseness, profanity or
vulgarity into the conversation.
In all of the trials of his political and official life no moment came
when he was not plainly devoted to his invalid wife. All the world loves
a noble, true lover, and such McKinley was, tender and gallant to his
sweetheart wife, as he ever was before they were married a quarter of a
century ago.
Illustrative of this, and exhibiting another phase of his campaigning,
was an incident of June 18, 1896.
Major McKinley believed, as did nearly every other person in the United
States at all interested and informed, that he would be nominated for
President by the National Republican convention, then in session at St.
Louis, and he was in close communication with his friends there while
seated in his comfortable cottage home at Canton, Ohio. Here were
assembled a few close friends, some newspaper reporters, a telegraph
operator, with Major McKinley, his wife and mother. The day had passed
pleasantly and in happy expectancy. At last came one telegram that
brought a sparkle of delight to the eyes of the great man who was most
interested, personally. It told of the nomination by an enthusiastic and
overwhelming vote of McKinley.
Without a word McKinley took the telegram across the room to where his
wife sat, bent lovingly over her and kissed her flushed and fevered
cheek, giving her at the same time the pleasant message. She did not
speak. Her heart was too full. She who had watched him through so many
years in his ever upward course, she who was proud of him as her husband
and hero, and whom she had seen cast aside honors, riches and glory,
when to accept them would have been to compromise his moral honor and to
stain his conscience; she looked all her gratefulness and love, and then
found words to say, affectionately, “Thank you, dear!”
The wisdom that had marked McKinley’s entire course in politics was
destined to break the way for him to the White House, and now it had
already made him the central figure of one of the most brilliant and yet
unostentatious campaigns that the republic has ever known.
When his prominent rival announced that he would travel over the country
making his campaign of speeches from the rear platform of a railway
coach, Major McKinley did not become alarmed, but chose the opposite and
more potent course. Although urged to do so, he refused to enter joint
debates, not fearing his ability to cope with his opponents, but
believing that the best interests of his party would not be subserved
thereby. He remained at home and his popularity became so great that
large delegations from every walk in life visited him daily, making
speeches which evinced their faith in this wise leader and their loyalty
to him.
McKinley was, of course, called upon to reply, and then the wisdom of
his manner of campaign became palpably evident. The press of the country
reported all the speeches of McKinley and his visitors, and Canton
became the political center of the United States.
Trainloads of people, delegations from cities and clubs, from
organizations of old soldiers, labor organizations, social circles, and
all manner of industrial combinations, employers and employed, came day
in and day out, through all of the long campaign. These proceeded at
once to the McKinley cottage, and all were cordially received by the
future President. Such unique scenes have never been witnessed in a
political campaign, and have only been suggested by the “Log Cabin
Campaign,” of 1840, when “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” was the rallying cry
of the elder Harrison’s confident and enthusiastic partisans. Nothing
could have more eloquently and earnestly emphasized the faith of the
great body of the people in their loyalty and trust in McKinley and the
hopeful expectations of the country, than did the Canton campaign, which
was carried to a common center rather than scattered abroad, and which
was conducted by the voters rather than the candidate.
Many of the speeches delivered on the lawn at the McKinley home have
properly taken a place in the records of the nation’s history, because
they not only show the earnest trust of the people in McKinley, but from
those delivered by him have given him the stamp of the patriot,
statesman and orator, and they will be always valuable as edifying and
instructive in their dealing with American policies, and brilliantly
illustrative of the economics involved.
Three great questions—tariff, currency and pensions—were specially
involved as being uppermost in the minds of the people, and McKinley’s
exact position, with relation to these important propositions, was a
matter of deep concern. No doubt seemed to exist, however, as to his
views, because all through his past life the record had shown his
loyalty to the cardinal principles of which these questions were phases,
shades and details, and his faithfulness now was accepted, his
re-indorsement of it all was simply a pleasant campaign ceremony and a
reiteration for the benefit of misinformed. The whole affair was another
and a greater “campaign of education.”
On the three questions that were special issues McKinley gave forth no
uncertain sound. Equivocation was foreign to him under any
circumstances, and in these he was at all times earnestly the advocate
of a protective tariff, sound money and liberal pensions to the Union
soldiers who had responded so nobly to their country’s call when its
life and weal were endangered. Upon all questions of national policy
McKinley was clear and emphatic, and never in the history of politics
has there been a candidate for the exalted place of President who has
been accepted with such cordiality and unanimity by his party.
The campaign progressed satisfactorily to the managers of the McKinley
interest and the great candidate deeply endeared himself to the public
by expressing unbounded faith and unwavering hope in the judgment and
good will of the common people. The campaign, however, presented many
new and confusing phases and there were obstructing conditions that had
never before arisen. Populism had grown formidable and party alignments
had become much confused. A feeling of extreme anxiety had grown out of
the uncertainties of the business situation. The wheels of industry
stood still, and all business was inert, alarmed and awaiting the
results of the election and the developments that would follow.
The world was interested, for “Hard Times” was walking with it, arm in
arm, and holding it back. Europe preserved an anxious silence, Asia felt
the unusual depression of uncertainty, South America was eagerly
listening for the result. Election day came and the vast mass of voters
in the United States arose early, impressed by the words of William
McKinley as to what should be done. Patriotic duty was the thought of
the hour. Upon that day a vast majority of the sovereign voters,
throwing off all trammels, cast their ballots in favor of industry and
against calamity. The day was bright throughout the land, the friends of
industrious prosperity took the color of the day, and the noiseless fall
of ballots established and stamped the people’s will. The result was
quickly known—McKinley and prosperity were elected. The largest popular
majority ever given was that by the people for the people, and William
McKinley’s power as a campaigner had wrought wondrous good to the
republic and the world.