President McKinley

by Robert W. Merry

  What Republicans didn’t understand, argued Mills, was that international trade was like any other human transaction: to get something, you must give something. So it is with the foreigner who wants to sell his products: “Let in his cottons, woolens, wool, ores, coal, pig-iron, fruits, sugar, coffee, tea—let all these things come into the country, because when you do that something has to go out to pay for them. . . . That will create a demand for that American product.”

  Thus did Mills counter the protectionists’ static economic analysis, in which a gain for foreign producers would necessarily entail a loss for American manufacturers and farmers. He urged instead a dynamic view of global market expansion that benefits importers and exporters alike. By way of illustration, he traced the import levels and domestic production of pig iron. The statistics proved, said Mills, that when imports increased, so did domestic production; when imports declined, domestic production declined also. “The Republicans tell us that when importation starts up production starts down. It is not true.”

  But McKinley had the votes. His bill, encompassing nearly 4,000 separate items, cleared the House on a 164–142 tally on May 21 and went to the Senate, where it fell under the sway of the redoubtable Senator Aldrich, bent on shaping the final product to his particular liking. The Senate attached some 496 amendments but also embraced the thinking of James G. Blaine, now Harrison’s secretary of state. Blaine felt that Republican protectionism had gone too far, as he made clear in the Senate one day when he encountered some GOP members in the vice president’s office just off the Senate floor. “I think the bill is an infamy and an outrage,” he stormed. “It is the most shameful measure ever proposed to a civilized people. Go on with it and it will carry our party to perdition.” Then he thrust his fist upon his new beaver hat, which was lying upon a nearby table, with such force as to “smash it flatter than a pancake,” according to one newspaper account. He hurled the misshapen hat against the wall for added emphasis.

  In calmer moments Blaine proposed a policy innovation designed to blunt the full force of McKinley’s tall tariffs. Called “reciprocity,” the Blaine concept, in its final Senate form, would permit the president to impose tariffs on certain South American products that were destined for the free list if those countries imposed tariffs on particular U.S. goods. The idea was to retain fundamental Republican protectionism while allowing negotiated free-trade exceptions that clearly could benefit the United States. Though McKinley had reacted frostily to the idea when Blaine proposed it during House deliberations, he now warmed to it and lent his considerable authority to its deliberation. It was part of the measure that passed the Senate on September 11 and went to a joint House-Senate conference committee.

  The bill that emerged from conference addressed two imperatives for Republicans, one economic and the other political—the budget surplus and the push from industrial interests for ever greater protection. The surplus quickly faded, though increased federal spending under Harrison contributed to that result. And the party had assuaged the agitations of businessmen who wanted to close off American markets as thoroughly as possible. The measure was distinctive in four particulars: its expansive farm duties, the novel sugar bounty, the tariff to protect a hardly existent tin plate industry, and the reciprocity principle. A pleased President Harrison signed the measure into law on October 1, barely a month before the midterm elections.

  Though McKinley would hint later that the tariff-writing effort got a bit out of control in the Senate, the final measure unquestionably reflected his view that protectionism was the key to American prosperity and greatness. In his House speech, he drew a stark distinction between protectionist America and free-trade Britain. The total value of U.S. imports and exports increased by 62 percent between 1870 and 1889, said McKinley, while Britain’s trade increased by only 25 percent over the same period. Further, Britain’s proportion of global trade had fallen from 27 percent in 1830 to just 21 percent in 1880; during that time America’s share of global trade increased from 3.7 to 11.5 percent. “We lead all nations in agriculture,” McKinley declared, “we lead all nations in mining, and we lead all nations in manufacturing. These are the trophies which we bring after twenty-nine years of a protective tariff. Can another system furnish such evidences of prosperity?”

  Perhaps not. But critics quickly pointed out that there wasn’t much evidence of a cause-and-effect relationship between protectionism and American prosperity. Senator John B. Allen of Washington argued that many other factors also contributed to America’s expanding growth. The country’s history showed, he said, that “prosperity and adversity have come alternately under both a high and a low tariff.”

  Allen had a point. America was a young and frisky nation, rich in rivers, coastlines, fertile soil, and minerals; populated by a vibrant and expansionist people; powerfully positioned across the North American midsection and facing two oceans. Its destiny seemed well established irrespective of fiscal policies at any particular time, and hence the great 1890 tariff debate probably didn’t carry the significance many attributed to it. But it did generate potent political passions, and the reaction against the McKinley tariff was swift and severe. Opponents predicted big increases in the price of household necessities, and clever tradesmen exploited the opportunity to raise prices even before the tariff act could have any real impact. Given that Americans seemed evenly divided between protectionist and free-trade sentiments, any bill moving so far in either direction was destined to kick up fierce agitation.

  One result was that McKinley, though nationally known now, wasn’t known favorably in all quarters. By the time he got back to Canton to campaign for reelection, his district had become a hotbed of controversy over his tariff law. Also contributing to his vulnerability—and to that of Republicans throughout the nation—was an economic recession that hit in mid-1890. And Democrats in the Ohio legislature challenged the Major further with yet another redistricting thrust that added heavily Democratic Holmes County to his district for the first time. Gleeful Democrats figured the new district contained some 3,000 more Democrats than Republicans.

  When the ballots were counted, the veteran Canton congressman lost his seat by 303 votes. It was a bad night for Republicans everywhere. McKinley’s party lost eighty-five House seats around the country, while Democrats picked up two Senate seats. Naturally the election would be viewed widely as a stern repudiation of the McKinley tariff. As reports coming into McKinley’s campaign headquarters revealed the magnitude of the defeat, the Major sat in a dimly lit office, puffing on a cigar and reflecting upon the results. In walked his good friend George Frease, Repository editor. Frease looked around at the disheveled office, with discarded papers, brochures, buttons, and posters surrounding the solitary political figure languishing in defeat.

  “It’s all over,” said the editor.

  McKinley said nothing.

  “What am I to say in the paper?” asked Frease.

  McKinley turned his gaze upward to reveal a pensive expression. Then his congenital optimism asserted itself. “In the time of darkest defeat,” he said, “victory may be nearest.”

  After further rumination, it was determined that McKinley would draft the editorial to be published in the next day’s paper. It began, “Protection was never stronger than it is at this hour. And it will grow in strength and in the hearts of the people.” The editorial argued that the elections had been decided “upon a false issue”—the ploy of free-traders and retailers to raise prices and charge it upon the McKinley bill. “But the people who have been duped will not forget. Nor will the friends of protection lower their flag.”

  McKinley certainly had no intention of lowering his own flag of protectionism. Nor was he the kind of man to retreat into any pathos of defeat. When Mark Hanna wrote to express encouragement, the Major wrote back, “I agree with you that defeat under the circumstances was for the best. . . . There is no occasion for alarm. We must take no backward step.” As he put it in the Repository editori
al, penned in the midst of adversity, “Reason will be enthroned and none will suffer so much as those who have participated in misguiding a trusting people. Keep up your courage. Strengthen your organizations and be ready for the great battle in Ohio in 1891, and the still greater one in 1892.”

  — 6 —

  Four Years in Columbus

  THE COMFORT OF RICH AND POWERFUL FRIENDS

  McKinley wasted no time in projecting publicly the attitude he had struck anonymously in his Repository editorial. Early in 1891, after former president Cleveland gave a speech at Columbus extolling the virtues of free trade, McKinley attacked the Democratic tendency to exalt “cheap goods from abroad above good wages at home.” He characterized the previous Democratic free-trade period as a time “when cheap foreign goods . . . destroyed our manufactories, checked our mining, suspended our public works and private enterprises, sent our workingmen from work to idleness . . . surrendered our markets to the foreigner . . . and diminished domestic production and domestic employment.” Clearly the Republicans’ electoral defeat of 1890 wasn’t going to intimidate this protectionist warrior.

  But he wasn’t sure what political avenue to pursue in waging the fight. He contemplated a run for Ohio governor, confident the nomination could be obtained without a fuss. But the governorship didn’t seem particularly alluring given that it lacked a veto power and other tools of political leverage. Also he would face a formidable opponent in Democratic incumbent James E. Campbell, whose political standing had soared in 1889 when he stifled Governor Foraker’s third-term bid. Losing to Campbell could upend McKinley’s presidential plans. Perhaps a return to Congress after a proper interval, he mused, would be the better ticket. “I should be quite content,” he told reporters anxious to divine his intentions, “to look after my personal affairs, which have suffered of course by my long absence from my business and my clients.”

  Still, the governorship conferred national stature and constituted a sturdy springboard to higher office. He listened respectfully when a delegation of Ohio Republicans argued that only he could unite Ohio’s Sherman and Foraker factions. Still pondering the question, he showed up unannounced at Foraker’s Cincinnati home to inquire whether the former governor would nominate him for governor at the state GOP convention if he decided to run. When Foraker said yes, the Major entered the race.

  Foraker rose to the occasion. At the GOP’s June convention at Columbus, he declared that every Republican in the state knew and loved McKinley, whereas every Democrat “fears him.” No man had ever been nominated for Ohio governor “who . . . was such a distinctively national and international character.” Enthusiastic delegates promptly nominated the Major by acclamation.

  He kicked off his campaign at his birthplace town of Niles, where GOP partisans had erected a huge tin arch across the central thoroughfare emblazoned with the words “Protection is Prosperity.” Tin was placed everywhere as a tribute to the industry expected to rise on the wings of McKinley’s big tariff on foreign tin plate. The campaign garnered national attention as a barometer of Republicans’ ability to rebound from their 1890 devastation, particularly given Campbell’s unrelenting attack on the McKinley tariff.

  But Campbell also pressed for expansive silver coinage, thus forcing McKinley to deal with the flammable currency issue. This put him in a delicate position, as he had flirted with inflationist sentiments early in his career and even now embraced “bimetallism” as a defensible middle ground. He also had supported the ill-conceived 1890 Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which sought to expand the money supply through the federal purchase of $50 million worth of silver annually. Unfortunately it had spawned an ominous outflow of gold to foreign lands, as investors sought to redeem silver notes for gold. Even John Sherman, who never truly embraced the concept despite his sponsorship, now favored its repeal. All this placed McKinley at odds with the hard-money Eastern GOP establishment, hardly a favorable stance for any GOP presidential aspirant. He scrambled to get himself more conventionally positioned. “We cannot gamble with anything so sacred as money,” he declared at Niles, “which is the standard and measure of all values.”

  The McKinley campaign enjoyed abundant financial support from Mark Hanna, who augmented his own considerable contributions by raising funds from generous Republican donors from multiple states. The money was to be used in part to meet McKinley’s personal expenses during the campaign, a common practice at the time. “I am a thousand times obliged to you for your letter with enclosure,” the Major wrote to Hanna. Two weeks later he asked Hanna to send all further contributions directly to the party committee. “I have sufficient to defray my personal expenses,” he reported.

  But Hanna wasn’t around for other campaign duties because he was busy trying to save Sherman’s Senate seat from Foraker, now bent on upending his rival when the Ohio legislature convened in January 1892 with an early duty of filling that seat. The Sherman and Foraker forces worked furiously to secure commitments from prospective legislators during the political season by offering campaign support. After the legislative elections, they cajoled and pressured Republican legislators right up to the day of balloting. Inevitably the battle intensified the state’s Republican rift. Even before Foraker made his move, Hanna had publicly scorned his former political ally. “Foraker has been a very heavy load for some time,” he said in New York in March 1890. “Politically I am done with him.”

  Now Hanna spared no effort in behalf of Sherman, whose support among state Republicans was broad but desultory. He organized efforts in all key districts, particularly around Cleveland, applied pressure where needed, and distributed campaign funds copiously in an effort to round up Sherman commitments among legislators and prospective legislators. Meanwhile the beleaguered senator defied convention by leaving Washington and installing himself at Columbus to assist personally in his own cause. “The situation was bad, almost desperate,” recalled a Sherman loyalist. Hanna was outraged when three legislators who had committed to Sherman disappeared amid rumors that they planned to reappear on election day and vote for Foraker. Hanna tracked them down and forced them back into line with an austere firmness. But the situation remained fluid—and very dangerous for Sherman. In the end, the venerable senator managed to squeeze out enough votes for victory. He promptly credited Hanna. “I feel that without you I would have been beaten,” Sherman wrote to his benefactor. “You have been a true friend, liberal, earnest and sincere, without any personal selfish motive.”

  In the meantime, Hanna’s other favorite politician also emerged victorious. McKinley outpolled Campbell in November by 21,511 votes in a year with few notable Republican triumphs. He would go to Columbus, cement his standing as a statewide political leader, and acquire the executive experience that would bolster his future White House run. Thomas Reed wrote, “I am much rejoiced over your victory which is the only bright spot in the last elections.”

  Early in 1892 the McKinleys moved into Columbus’s ornate Chittenden Hotel, facing the Capitol Building. When the Chittenden burned down some months later, the couple moved into the equally plush and well-situated Neil House, where they enjoyed a spacious apartment that included office, parlor, bedroom, dining room, store room, and maid’s quarters. In both locations, the couple settled into a comfortable routine. The Major enjoyed his wood-paneled executive chamber and avidly embraced his daytime schedule of appointments, political negotiations, and decision making. He fashioned serious initiatives designed to overhaul the state’s unequal tax system, improve safety for railroad workers, and rejuvenate Ohio’s deteriorating canal network. He also pushed for a more equitable redistricting regimen, ensuring that the party with the most votes would capture most of the state’s congressional seats. Over the next two years, the heavily Republican legislature approved all of the governor’s major initiatives.

  During the evenings of his governorship, McKinley would sit with Ida as she crocheted the dozens of slippers that she delighted in distributing to friends, acquainta
nces, and anybody in need that she might hear about. Occupying his favorite chair nearby, the governor would read papers, draft speeches, and chew on the end of an ever-present cigar. Occasionally, recalled Charlie Bawsel, McKinley’s chief executive clerk, he would read aloud from partially prepared speeches, and Ida would nod her approval here and there as her fingers fluttered over her crochet work. Sometimes the governor would retreat to his office to receive lawmakers and other officials intent on discussing pressing governmental matters. “But a conference must be of the most pressing nature,” recalled Bawsel, “to detain him long from Mrs. McKinley’s side.” The governor’s evenings belonged “wholly to her. This, the little lady insists upon.”

  He demonstrated his devotion further with a morning and afternoon ritual that became famous in Columbus. Upon reaching the capitol steps each morning after striding through the government plaza from his hotel residence, the governor would turn and doff his hat toward her hotel window across the way. She would respond by waving a handkerchief. Precisely at three o’clock each afternoon, he would step outside and repeat the gesture, acknowledged again with her handkerchief wave. It was such a touching scene that government employees, hotel guests, and tourists often positioned themselves around the plaza to witness it. Indeed the local expectation surrounding the gesture stirred one newspaper wag and later politician, Warren Harding, to express suspicions that the gubernatorial ritual took place even when Ida was out of town.

  Ida’s health entered a phase of improvement during this time, though that did not diminish her tendency toward peevishness. At one point, when she proudly traveled on her own from Canton to Columbus, she neglected to notify Bawsel to have someone pick her up at the train station. Blaming Bawsel, she became quite “huffy.” She also became indignant when Bawsel neglected to notice a new gown she was wearing. But she always perked up at any prospect for travel, and a delighted McKinley took her on numerous trips across the country as he pursued political duties and speaking engagements. When he attended the 1892 Republican National Convention at Minneapolis, she stayed with a cousin in Chicago and attended the World’s Fair, which she pronounced “the greatest exhibition the world has ever witnessed.”