Monday, June 7, 2010

#25: McKinley, William

William McKinley
Jan. 29, 1843 (Niles, Ohio) -- Sept. 14, 1901 (Buffalo, New York)

Watercolor!
(His face is shiny because I didn't wait for it to dry before taking the picture. I'm sleepy.)

McKinley succeeded Grover Cleveland in 1897. He was the third President to be assassinated and the fifth to die in office! That's a lot given that he was only #25.

"Others sometimes regarded [McKinley] as cold an pompous, perhaps because of his rigid bearing, piercing eyes, and his tight, thin lips. He went to church regularly and lavished great care and affection upon his invalid wife." She suffered from shock and grief after both her daughters died at a young age. She later developed epilepsy. "McKinley was devoted to his wife and constantly cared for all her needs. When he was governor of Ohio, he would turn before entering the state house in Columbus, then remove his hat and bow to his wife in their hotel room window across the street. He waved to her from a window at 3 o'clock every afternoon." Later during his campaign for President, McKinley refused to leave his wife for long campaign tours. Therefore, McKinley's friend and political patron, Marcus A. Hanna, a Cleveland millionaire, "arranged to have thousands of visitors travel to Canton[, Ohio]" where McKinley would give short, rehearsed speeches from his front porch. He was elected and became president in 1897.

McKinley campaigned on raising tariffs (good ol' American protectionism) and enacting a new gold standard for currency. I have to be honest that the last few presidential entries in this historical romp through the 1981 World Book have involved lengthy passages about currency scandals, the silver standard, the gold standard, crazy inflation, and so forth. I don't understand any of it so I haven't been including it... not necessarily the best approach, I admit.

At the beginning of McKinley's first term, a Cuban revolt was raging against Spanish rule. In 1898, a U.S. ship exploded in Havana harbor (nobody ever figured out why). Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt, urged McKinley to declare war. McKinley waffled. Roosevelt called him a "white-livered cur" who had "prepared two messages, one for war and one for peace, and doesn't know which one to send in." McKinley finally declared war on April 11, 1898. The Spanish-American War lasted only 113 days, but in the end the U.S. acquired Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico. (In McKinley's second term, the Supreme Court affirmed that the residents of these new dependencies did not have the rights of citizens and that Congress could impose tariffs on their trade). Roosevelt, who had returned a hero from the Spanish-American war, was selected as McKinley's running mate for his second term.

McKinley was assasinated six months into his second term. He was appearing at a public reception during the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. Hundreds of people waited to shake his hand. Leon F. Czolgosz, an anarchist, approached him, grasped his hand, then shot him twice with a revolver he'd concealed with a handkerchief in his left hand. According to World Book, "McKinley slumped forward, gasping, 'Am I shot?' The crowd pounced on the assassin and began beating him. McKinley pointed to Czolgosz, imploring, 'Let no one hurt him.' He whispered to his secretary: 'My wife--be careful, Cortelyou, how you tell her--oh, be careful.'" Czolgosz was later electrocuted.

2 comments:

  1. The Ballad of Czolgosz! There are lots of delightfully terrible community theatre and college versions of this on youtube, but I thought I'd go with this one which uses the recording from the B-Way revival. Who makes these videos? Recognize the voice of the Baladeer?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJO5Mltvf50&feature=related

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  2. McKinley resisted war because he'd seen enough of it in the Civil War, at Antietam, the bloodiest day in American history. He did not "waffle." He resisted the war hawks and the yellow press, knowing it was young men who fought wars not old men giving speeches.

    In the end, Spain declared war on the United States first. Only then did the Congress get the war it wanted. TR said McKinley had the spine of a chocolate eclair, but he had a steel spine. No president has ever resisted war like he did ,to the point Congress threatened to declare war over his objections -- which would have put him in the awkward position of having to prosecute it as commander-in-chief!

    Unlike, say, LBJ, who declared war after the Gulf of Tonkin where it turned out nothing happened, McKinley urged calm and for everyone to wait to see what the investigation found had sunk the USS Maine in Havana Harbor.

    Even after a Spanish cable was intercepted mocking McKinley for his peace efforts, he still tried to seek peace.

    And, yes, the Ballad is pretty catchy. In the end, even Czolgosz by one report regretted his actions. Imagine shooting a guy and his first thought is to save your life, and to order the Secret Service, "Don't hurt him, boys."

    It's sad McKinley gets such a bad rap!

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