McKINLEY'S PRESIDENCY
1896 to 1901
The hard times, the business depression, all attributable to the
Wilson Tariff Bill, made the Republicans turn instinctively to
Governor McKinley, the well-known advocate of a high protective
tariff, as the nominee of the Republican party, who would lead it
to victory at the polls.
The Republican National Convention of 1896 was held at St. Louis.
It was one of the few national conventions which I failed to attend.
Since entering the Senate, I have been usually honored by my party
colleagues in the State by being made chairman of the Illinois
delegation to Republican national conventions. But for some reason
or other--just why I do not now recollect--I was not a delegate to
the St. Louis Convention. Congress was in session until near the
time when the convention was to meet, and Mr. McKinley, who, it
was well known, would be the nominee of the party, invited me to
stop off in Canton on my way from Washington to Illinois and spend
a day with him. I did so, arriving at Canton about nine in the
morning, Mr. McKinley meeting me at the station and driving me to
his house, where I remained until my train left at nine in the
evening. From his residence in Canton, I wired the Illinois
delegation, appealing them to vote for McKinley. He received all
but two of the votes of the delegation. He was nominated without
any serious opposition, through the brilliant generalship of that
master of party manipulation, the Hon. Marcus A. Hanna.
I was talked about a little as a candidate for President during
the closing days of the Cleveland Administration. I was urged to
lend my name for the purpose, particularly by men in the East whom
I always regarded as my friends. I afterwards learned, although
I was not so informed at the time, that they had determined to beat
McKinley at all hazards and nominate Speaker Reed if they could,
their policy being to have the different States send delegations
in favor of "favorite sons." Senator Allison was selected as the
"favorite son" from Iowa, and efforts were made to carry the Illinois
delegation for me. They hoped by this means, when the delegates
assembled at St. Louis, to agree on some one, almost any one, except
McKinley--Reed if they could, or Allison, or me.
Mr. McKinley, through friends, about this time offered me all sorts
of inducements to withdraw. Judge Grosscup was the intermediary,
and there was hardly anything in the Administration, or hardly any
promise, he would not have made me if I had consented to withdraw.
I felt that I could not do so. When they found it was impossible
to beg me off they determined to carry the State over me. Money
was spent freely in characteristic Hanna fashion, his motto being,
"accomplish results." McKinley was exceedingly popular, in addition,
and after our State Convention had assembled and endorsed him, I
withdrew from the contest. At the time I thought that if I could
have carried the delegation from my own State, as Senator Allison
did his, it would have broken the McKinley boom, and one or the
other of us would have been nominated. But as I look back on it
now, it seems to me that no one could have beaten McKinley; and
even if he had lost Illinois, as he lost Iowa, he still would have
had sufficient delegates to secure his nomination.
The McKinley campaign was one of the most interesting and quite
the liveliest in which I have ever participated. It was a campaign
of education from beginning to end. At first the Republicans tried
to make the tariff the issue, and in a sense it remained one of
the most important; but we were soon compelled to accept silver as
the issue, and fight it out on that line. Silver was comparatively
a new question; the people did not understand it, and they attended
the meetings, listening attentively to the campaign speeches.
There was considerable satisfaction in speaking during the campaign
of 1896: one was always assured of a large and interested audience.
In addition to this, the prevailing sentiment was one of cheerful
good-feeling; and while there had been several candidates before
the St. Louis Convention, including Speaker Reed, Senator Allison,
and Levi P. Morton, the convention left no bitterness--the party
was united, and every Republican did his full duty. Southern
Illinois was a little uncertain; but it finally came around, and
the full Republican vote was cast for McKinley and Hobart.
I took a very active part in this campaign. Mr. McKinley was
exceedingly polite to me and invited Senator Thurston and me to
open the campaign in Canton, which invitation I accepted, addressing
there a vast audience. It was said that some fifty or seventy-five
thousand people were assembled there that day. Subsequently I
spoke in Kentucky and Michigan, and made a thorough campaign in my
own State.
While the Republicans were united, the Democrats were hopelessly
divided. The so-called Gold Democrats held a convention and
nominated my colleague, Senator Palmer, and General Buckner as its
candidates for President and Vice-President respectively. They
did not receive a very large vote, because I believe they advised
the Gold Democrats to vote for McKinley. The Gold Democrats had
great influence in the election. General Palmer was thoroughly in
earnest on the silver question, more so perhaps than any Democrat
whom I knew. He believed strongly in the Democratic doctrine on
the tariff, and was a Democrat on every other issue; but he could
not follow his party in espousing free silver.
There was doubt all the time over the result of the election.
After the Democratic convention was held in Chicago, and in the
early Summer and Fall, the Democrats certainly seemed to have the
best of it; but later in the campaign, as the people became educated,
it began to look brighter. I was very much surprised at the result,
however. McKinley carried the election by a vote of 7,111,000 as
against 6,509,000 for Mr. Bryan, and the electoral vote by 271 as
against 176 for Mr. Bryan.
When Mr. McKinley was inaugurated I cannot forget the expression
of apparent relief in President Cleveland's face, as he accompanied
his successor to the ceremony. He seemed rejoiced that he was
turning his great office over to Mr. McKinley. The last days of
his Administration had been troublesome ones. Estranged from his
own party, war clouds appearing in the near distance,--I do not
wonder that he gladly relinquished the office.
Mr. McKinley came into office under the most favorable circumstances.
A Congress was elected fully in harmony with him, whose members
gladly acknowledged him as not only the titular, but the real head
of the Republican party. We never had a President who had more
influence with Congress than Mr. McKinley. Even President Lincoln
had difficulties with the leaders of Congress in his day, but I
have never heard of even the slightest friction between Mr. McKinley
and the party leaders in Senate and House.
In many respects, President McKinley was a very great man. He
looked and acted the ideal President. He was always thoroughly
self-poised and deliberate; nothing ever seemed to excite him, and
he always maintained a proper dignity. He had the natural talent
and make-up to be successful to a marked degree in dealing with
people with whom he came into contact. He grew in popular favor
from the day of his election until his death, and I have always
maintained that he would go down in history as our most popular
President among all classes of people in all sections of the country.
His long training in public life--his service as a member of the
House and Governor of Ohio--had well fitted him for the high office
of President. He had many favorites whom he desired to get into
office; and on many occasions, instead of going ahead and appointing
his friends without consulting any one, he asked me if I would have
any objection to his appointing some personal friend living in
Illinois to one office or another in or out of the State. I always
yielded; in fact it was impossible to resist him.
Illustrating this, there happened to be a vacancy in a Federal
Judgeship in Chicago. Presidents usually have selected their own
judges regardless of Senatorial recommendation, and McKinley selected
his; but he managed to secure Senatorial recommendation at the same
time. I was in favor of the appointment of a certain lawyer in
Chicago whom I regarded as thoroughly well qualified for the place,
and the President wanted to appoint Judge Christian C. Kohlsaat.
My colleague and I insisted for a long time on our recommendation.
The President and I debated the question frequently, he always
listening to me and seeming impressed with what I had to say, at
the same time remaining fully determined to have his own way in
the end. Finally, when I was in the executive office one day, he
came over to where I was and, putting his arm on my shoulder, said:
"Senator, you won't get mad at me if I appoint Judge Kohlsaat,
will you?" I replied: "Mr. President, I could not get mad at you
if I were to try." He sent the nomination in; Judge Kohlsaat was
confirmed, and is now serving on the United States Circuit Bench.
Mr. McKinley wanted to appoint his old friend and commander, General
Powell, as Collector of Internal Revenue at East St. Louis. I did
not want General Powell to have the office, as I did not believe
he had rendered any service to the party sufficient to justify
giving him one of the general Federal offices in the State. State
Senator P. T. Chapman, who has since been elected to Congress
several times, and Hon. James A. Willoughby, then a member of the
Illinois State Senate, were both candidates, and I should have been
very glad to have had either one of them appointed.
Chapman came to Washington to my office, where he waited while I
went to the White House to attempt to have the matter of the
appointment settled. I saw the President, to whom I expressed a
willingness to have the post of Collector of Internal Revenue for
the East St. Louis District to go either to Chapman or Willoughby.
"Cullom," returned the President, "if you had come to me this way
in the first place, and urged me to appoint one of them, I would
have done it; but you have waited until everything is filled, and
now I must either appoint Powell to this place, or turn him out to
grass." He continued: "I was a boy when I entered the army, and
General Powell took me under his wing; he looked after me, and I
became very much attached to him. I was standing only a little
way off and saw him shot through." The tears came to the President's
eyes and ran down his cheeks. When I saw with what feeling he
regarded the matter, I threw up my hands.
"I am through," said I; "I have nothing more to say."
General Powell was given the office. This illustrates the manner
in which Mr. McKinley always managed to get his own way in the
matter of appointments without the slightest friction with Senators
and Representatives.
During the early days of his Administration I did not feel so close
to him as I had felt toward some of his predecessors. I did not
feel that he quite forgave my not yielding to him, and declining
to become a candidate for President in 1896. He was always polite
to me, as he was to every one, yet I could not but feel that he
was holding me at arm's length. My colleague, Senator Mason, who
was an old friend of his, had secured a number of appointments,
and the President himself was constantly asking me to yield to the
appointment of this or that "original McKinley man," mostly either
my enemies or men of whom I knew nothing. I was much out of humor
about it, and several consular appointments having been made about
that time, I wrote some one in the State a letter setting forth
that those appointments were but the carrying out of promises made
in advance of McKinley's nomination. This letter, or a copy of
it, was sent to the President. I called at the White House one
day concerning the appointment of some man, whose name I do not
remember, but whom I regarded as my personal enemy. I told him I
had no objection, but that I regarded the man as a jackass. McKinley
evidently did not like my remark very well; he reached back on his
table, pulled out this letter, or a copy of it, and asked me if I
had written it. I replied that I did not know whether I had or
not, but that it sounded very much as I felt at the moment. He
said that he had not expected an expression of that sort from me.
Whereupon we had a general overhauling, in the course of which I
told him with considerable feeling that I had been more or less
intimate with every President since, and including, Mr. Lincoln,
and had always been treated frankly and not held at arm's length;
but with himself that I had been constantly made to feel that he
was reserved with me. We quarrelled about it a little, and finally
he asked me what I wanted done. I told him. He promptly promised
to do it, and did.
That quarrel cleared the atmosphere, and we remained devoted friends
from that day until his death.
Had it not been for the Hon. Marcus A. Hanna, Mr. McKinley would
probably never have been nominated or elected President of the
United States.
I knew Mr. Hanna very many years before he became identified with
the late President McKinley. He always took an interest in Republican
politics, particularly in Ohio politics; and when Mr. Blaine was
a candidate for the Presidency, and I was campaigning in Ohio, I
rode with Mr. Hanna from Canton to Massillon, some seven or eight
miles distant, where a great meeting was held, with Mr. Blaine as
the central figure. I was even then very much impressed with Mr.
Hanna as a man of the very soundest judgment and common sense.
But it was not until Mr. McKinley became a candidate for President
that Hanna took a very great interest in national political affairs.
He had the deepest affection for the late President, and was
determined that he should be nominated and elected President of
the United States, at whatever cost. Mr. Hanna took hold of Mr.
McKinley's campaign for the nomination and controlled it absolutely
and, to use the common expression, he "ran every other candidate
off the track."
He came into Illinois and carried the State easily. He was not
sparing in the use of money, but believed in using it legitimately
in accomplishing results.
It must have been a great satisfaction to him when the St. Louis
Convention nominated his candidate, William McKinley, of Ohio, on
the first ballot by a vote of 661 as against 84 votes for Thomas
B. Reed, of Maine, the next highest candidate. He had it all
organized so perfectly that the St. Louis convention was perfunctory
so far as Mr. McKinley's nomination was concerned. The Convention
recognized that it was Mr. Hanna had achieved this great triumph;
and after Senator Lodge, Governor Hastings, and Senators Platt and
Depew had moved that the nomination of Mr. McKinley be made unanimous,
a general call was made for Mr. Hanna. He finally yielded in a
very brief address:
"Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention:--I am glad there
was one member of this Convention who has had the intelligence at
this late hour to ascertain how this nomination was made--by the
people. What feeble effort I may have contributed to the result,
I am here to lay the fruits of it at the feet of my party and upon
the altar of my country. I am now ready to take my position in
the ranks alongside of my friend, General Henderson, and all good
Republicans from every State, and do the duty of a soldier until
next November."
Naturally, Mr. Hanna was made chairman of the Republican National
Committee, and as such conducted Mr. McKinley's campaign for election
just as he had conducted the preliminary campaign for the nomination.
He there showed the shrewdest tact and ability in its management,
and many people believe that he elected McKinley very largely by
his own efforts.
I do not know whether Mr. Hanna was very ambitious to enter the
Senate or not, but I do believe that Mr. McKinley saw that he would
be probably the most useful Senator to his Administration; and he
contrived to make a vacancy in the Senatorship from Ohio by inducing
John Sherman to accept the position of Secretary of State in his
Cabinet, thereby making a place for Mr. Hanna in the Senate.
Senator Sherman resigned to enter the State Department; and on
March 5, 1897, Mr. Hanna was appointed by Governor Bushnell to fill
the vacancy.
From the very first Mr. Hanna took rank as one of the foremost
leaders of the Senate. Of course, he had everything in his favor.
He had nominated and elected McKinley; he had been Chairman of the
Republican National Committee, and it was known that he stood closer
to the President than any other man in public life.
But notwithstanding this, he had the real ability naturally to
assume his place as a leader. He assumed a prominent place more
rapidly than any Senator whom I have ever known. He took hold of
legislation with a degree of skill and confidence that was remarkable,
and carried his measures thorough apparently by his own individual
efforts and energy. He changed the whole attitude of the Senate
concerning the route for an interoceanic canal. We all generally
favored the Nicaraguan route. Senator Hanna became convinced that
the Panama route was best, and he soon carried everything before
him to the end that the Panama route was selected.
During the first McKinley campaign, Mark Hanna was probably the
most caricatured man in public life. He was made an issue in the
campaign and was usually pictured as being covered with money-bags
and dollars. But it is very strange how public sentiment changed
concerning him. Before the first McKinley Administration was over,
Mark Hanna enjoyed quite a degree of popularity; but it was not
until he entered the campaign of 1900 that he really became one of
the popular figures in American politics.
Some one, I do not know who, induced him to go among the people
and show himself, and try to make some speeches. His first few
efforts were so successful that it was determined he should make
a speech-making tour. Senator Frye, of Maine, one of the oldest
and most experienced and finest orators in the country, accompanied
him on his tour. Senator Frye told me that he prevailed upon
Senator Hanna to make short campaign speeches first. He requested
him to try a fifteen-minute speech, then extend them to thirty
minutes. Before their tour was ended, he was making just as long
and just as good a speech as any old experienced campaigner. During
this campaign, there were more calls on the Republican National
Committee for Senator Hanna than there were for any other campaign
speaker. Everywhere he went he made friends, not only for President
McKinley, the nominee of the party, but for himself as well. Mark
Hanna became one of the most popular leaders in the Republican
party, and I have never for a moment doubted that he could have
been the nominee of the party for the Presidency in 1904, had he
consented to accept it. He told me in a private conversation had
been gratified when he had seen his great personal friend, Mr.
McKinley, twice elected President of the United States, and now
that he had passed away he had no particular ambition on his own
account.
Mr. McKinley promptly proceeded to call a special session of
Congress, which convened March 15, 1897, and in which Mr. Reed was
elected Speaker of the House. This session was called for the
purpose of enacting a law for the raising of sufficient revenue to
carry on the Government; and on March 31 the Dingley Bill passed
the House. The bill was debated in the Senate for several weeks,
and after eight hundred and seventy-two amendments were incorporated,
it passed the Senate July 7, 1897. The conference report was agreed
to, and the act was approved July 24, 1897. The country was in
such condition then that we heard no complaint concerning the high
protective tariff. The Republicans were united in advocating such
a protective tariff as would enable the mills and factories to
open, thereby affording employment and restoring prosperity.
From the election of President McKinley and the enactment of the
Dingley Law I do not hesitate to say that we can date the greatest
era of prosperity, and the greatest material advancement, of any
period of like duration in our history.
Toward the close of the Cleveland Administration and all during
the first part of the McKinley Administration, conditions were
leading up inevitably to the Spanish-American War. The enthusiasm
of some Senators, especially Senator Proctor, of Vermont, and my
own colleague, Senator Mason, of Illinois, became so intense that
war was brought on before the country was really prepared for it.
Mr. McKinley held back. He knew the horrors of war and, if he
could avoid it, did not desire to see his country engage in
hostilities with any other country. He acted with great discretion,
holding things steadily until some degree of preparation was made;
and I have no doubt at all that the war would have been averted
had not the _Maine_ been destroyed in Havana harbor. The country
forced us into it after that appalling catastrophe.
The entire Nation stood behind the President, and so did Congress.
One of the most dignified and impressive scenes I ever witnessed
since I became a member of the Senate was the passage of the bill
appropriating fifty million dollars to be expended under the
direction of the President, in order to carry on the war. The
Committee on Appropriations, of which I had long been a member,
directed Senator Hale to report the bill. It was agreed in committee
that we should endeavor to secure its passage without a single
speech for or against it. Some of the Senators who seemed disposed
to talk, were prevailed upon to desist, and it was passed without
any speeches. The ayes and nays were called, and amid the most
solemn silence the bill was passed. The galleries were crowded;
a great many members of the House were on the floor, and it reminded
me of the days when the great Reconstruction legislation was being
enacted, in the sixties. It was a demonstration to the country
and the world of our confidence in the President, and the determination
on the part of Congress to do what was necessary to uphold the
dignity and honor of the United States. The vote for the bill in
the Senate was unanimous.
The war came on immediately afterwards. The history of it is yet
too fresh in the minds of the people to need repetition here. It
was soon over, and with its conclusion came new and greater
responsibilities. Whether it was wise for the United States to
assume these new responsibilities, I am not prepared to say. Time
alone can determine that.
I have always had great sympathy for General Russell A. Alger, of
Michigan, who was in President McKinley's Cabinet as Secretary of
War. It was not his fault that conditions in the War Department
were as they existed in 1897, when he assumed office. We must
remember that the country had enjoyed a continuous period of peace
from 1865 to 1898. We were unprepared for war, and in the scramble
and haste the Department of War was not administered satisfactorily,
the whole blame being laid upon General Alger. It had been the
policy of the Democratic party in Congress to oppose liberal
appropriations for the maintenance of the War Department and the
Army. Many Republicans thought that the best means of limiting
appropriations was in cutting down the estimates for the War
Department. They seemed to think that we would never again engage
in a foreign war.
General Alger was a thoroughly honest man, of whose integrity I
never had any doubt. He was made the scapegoat, and President
McKinley practically was forced by public sentiment to demand his
resignation. Personally, I have always believed the President
should have stood by General Alger. I was much gratified when his
own people in Michigan showed their confidence in him, very soon
after he was forced out of the McKinley Cabinet, by electing him
to a seat in the United States Senate made vacant by the death of
the late Senator McMillan.
During his Administration, President McKinley did me quite an honor
by appointing me chairman of a commission to visit the Hawaiian
Island, investigate conditions there, and report a form of government
for those islands. He appointed with me my colleague, Senator
Morgan of Alabama, and my friend the Hon. R. R. Hitt, chairman of
the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. In all my public life this
was the second executive appointment that I ever received, the
first being from President Lincoln during the Civil War, to
investigate commissary and quartermasters' accounts, to which I
have already referred.
It had been the well-known policy of the United States for many
years that in no event could the entity of Hawaiian statehood cease
by the passage of the islands under the domination or influence of
another power than the United States. Their annexation came about
as the natural result of the strengthening of the ties that bound
us to those islands for many years. The people had overthrown the
monarchy and set up a republic. It seemed certain that the republic
could not long exist, and they appealed to the United States for
annexation. The treaty of annexation was negotiated and then
ratified by Hawaii, but it was withdrawn by President Cleveland
before the Senate acted upon it; finally, the islands were annexed
by the passage of an act of Congress during the McKinley
Administration.
It was under these circumstances that Senator Morgan, Mr. Hitt,
and I visited the islands. The appointment came about in this way.
I had been urging the President to appoint Mr. Rheuna Lawrence, of
Springfield, Illinois, as one of the commissioners. The Hon. James
A. Connolly, then representing the Springfield district in Congress,
had also been very active in trying to secure Lawrence's appointment.
He came to me in the Senate one day and told me that there was no
chance of Lawrence being appointed and that the President had
determined to appoint me. I told Connolly I did not see how I
could accept an appointment, under the circumstances, and that
Lawrence might misunderstand it. Connolly said he thought I must
take the place. The President himself afterwards talked with me
about it. I hesitated. He urged me, insisting that I could not
very well afford to decline. Finally I said that if he insisted,
I would accept. He nominated us to the Senate for confirmation.
This precipitated considerable debate in the Senate, for, by the
member of the Committee on the Judiciary, the appointment of Senators
and members on such a commission was regarded as unconstitutional;
but the committee determined to take no action on the nominations
at all, so we were neither confirmed nor rejected. President
McKinley urged us to go ahead, however, visit the islands, and make
our report, which we did. This was the beginning of expansion, or
Imperialism, in the campaign of 1900.
One writer, in speaking of the acquisition of these islands, said:
"One of the brightest episodes in American history was the acquisition
of the Hawaiian Islands, and Senator Cullom's name is prominently
associated with that act. He read aright our history as a nation
of expansionists. He was not afraid to permit the great republic
to become greater. He deemed it wise that to the lines of our
influence on land should be added a national influence on the seas.
This view was accepted by the people and by the national Legislature.
By President McKinley, Senator Cullom was appointed chairman of
the Hawaiian Commission, composed of Senator Morgan of Alabama,
and Congressman Hitt of Illinois, and Senator Cullom, to visit the
islands and frame a new law providing for their civil government
and defining their future relations with the United States. Since
the days of Clyde in India, few men have been clothed with a more
important duty than this commission, whose mission it was to prepare
a Government for the Hawaiian Islands. The bill recommended by
the commission was enacted by Congress, and stands as the organic
law of the islands to-day."
We had an exceedingly interesting time in the Hawaiian Islands.
They were not known so well then as they are to-day. We visited
several of the islands composing the group, and publicly explained
our mission. The people seemed to have the impression that American
occupancy of the islands was only temporary, and that as soon as
the Spanish-American War was over they would return to old conditions.
We told them that annexation was permanent, and they would remain
a part of the United States for all time to come. I did not favor
giving them statehood. There was not a sufficient number of whites
and educated natives to justify giving them the franchise as an
independent State in the American Union. Senator Morgan and I
differed on this a great deal, and on several occasions in the
hearings of the commission, he stated that they were to become a
State. I always interposed to the effect that, so far as my
influence was concerned, they would remain a Territory.
There was one island of the group called Molokai devoted entirely
to the care of lepers, leprosy being quite common in the Hawaiian
Islands. We deemed it our duty to visit this island as well as
the others. It was one of the most interesting and pathetic places
of which the human mind can conceive--a place of grim tragedies.
There were about twelve hundred lepers on the island, divided into
two colonies, one at each end of the island. The island itself
forms a natural fortress from which escape is almost impossible,
the sea on one side and mountains on the other. We spent the day
there and ate luncheon on the island. We saw the disease in all
its stages. We entered a schoolhouse in which there were a crowd
of young girls ranging from ten to sixteen years of age. They were
all lepers. They sang for us. It was very pathetic. We visited
the cemetery and saw the monument erected to the memory of a Catholic
priest, Father Damien, who went there from Chicago, to devote his
life to the spiritual care of the unfortunates, but who, like all
others residing on the island, finally succumbed to the disease.
We met an old lady at the cemetery and I asked her if there was
any danger of contracting the disease. She said there was not
unless we had some abrasions on the skin, and advised us as a matter
of caution to wear gloves. I promptly put mine on and kept them
on until I left the island.
I was told that they expected me to speak to them, and I did make
them a speech. A large number of them assembled. I have addressed
many audiences in my life, but this was the queerest I was ever
obliged to face. There were men and women in all stages of the
disease. Leprosy attacks the fingers and they fall off, and some
natural instinct prompts the victim to hide his hands; but as my
speech was translated to them, in the excitement they would forget
and throw out their hands and applaud. It was a hideous sight and
I most fervently wish never to see the like of it again.
For our expenses one hundred thousand dollars had been appropriated.
I am not one of those who believe in lavish expenditures of public
money by commissions. While I was willing as chairman of the
commission to permit travelling expenses and the reasonable
necessaries and probably the luxuries of life while abroad, yet I
differed with my colleague, Senator Morgan, and insisted that no
money should be spent for entertaining. Out of the hundred thousand
dollars we spent something like fifteen thousand; and Senator
Morgan, Mr. Hitt, and I agreed that it would not be lawful or right
for us to accept any compensation for our services as members of
the commission. Something like eight-five thousand dollars reverted
to the Treasury.
We returned and made our report to Congress, and the bill which we
recommended was enacted. I do not think the present form of
government of Hawaii will be changed for many years to come. I
have regretted exceedingly that, despite the repeated recommendations
of Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt, Congress has not seen fit to
make an appropriation to improve the harbor and fortify the islands.
It is true they afford us a coaling station in the middle of the
Pacific, but that is all. Should hostilities break out in the Far
East, our country being a party, it would be almost impossible for
us to defend them, and they would become easy prey to foreign
aggression. I hope that this policy will change in the near future,
and that Pearl Harbor will be improved and the islands fortified.
The important events of the first McKinley Administration were the
enactment of the Dingley Tariff, the successful conclusion of the
war with Spain, the ratification of the Treaty of Peace, the
independence of Cuba, and the acquisition of Porto Rico, the
Philippines, and the Island of Guam; the establishment of the gold
standard by law, and the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands.
At the close of the Administration no one questioned that the
country was in a more prosperous condition than it ever had been
before, and that McKinley was probably the most popular President
that ever occupied the White House. He was unanimously nominated
at the Republican Convention, at Philadelphia, for a second term.
The campaign of 1900 was fought out on the issue of Imperialism;
the tariff was almost forgotten, and the silver question was only
discussed incidentally.
Mr. McKinley's popular vote was not much greater than it was in
1896. He received 7,207,000 as against 6,358,000 votes cast for
Mr. Bryan.
During the short session which convened after his election, the
Platt amendment concerning our future relations with Cuba was
passed. The War Revenue Act was reduced. It was an uneventful
session, and Mr. McKinley was again inaugurated March 4, 1901.
On September 6, 1901, the President attended the Buffalo Exposition,
accompanied by Mrs. McKinley and the members of his cabinet, and
during the reception which he held at the Temple of Music on that
day, he was shot and wounded by an assassin, one Leon F. Czolgosz.
After lingering along until Saturday, September 14, he passed away,
and Theodore Roosevelt, Vice-President, was sworn in as President
of the United States. On taking the oath of office, he uttered
but one sentence:
"I wish to say that it shall be my aim to continue absolutely
unbroken the policy of President McKinley for the peace, prosperity,
and the honor of our beloved country."