CHAPTER XV.

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.