""Ohio forty-six for McKinley!'

How He Received the News.-"That decided it. The Major stopped figuring, and rising to his feet, walked across the hall and kissed his wife and venerable mother. He had hardly done so when the windows rattled from the boom of a cannon fired but a short distance away. Canton had heard the news and had begun its celebration.

"It seemed as if in a few minutes the streets were swarming with people, all wending their way to the home of Major McKinley. The congratulations showered upon him were almost without number, while his acknowledgments were fervent and in the best of taste. It seemed as if Canton had become the Mecca for weeks following for half the people in the country. The candidate remained at home during the campaign, making responses to the delegations of numerous associations that called, but leaving the campaign wholly in the hands of his political manager."

His Brilliant Opponent.-William J. Bryan, Mr. McKinley's opponent, entered the fight with marvelous energy, traveling from city to city, addressing great throngs in the public halls and on the platform of his railway car, at fairs and mills and workshops, and at all hours of the day and night. As a campaigner he was quite the equal of Mr. McKinley himself, and despite the popularity of the Republican candidate, many of his supporters had misgivings of his success.

The Situation. This campaign was altogether different from what Mr. McKinley had long planned and expected. His specialty as a public man-I quote from the Evening Post-"had always been the tariff. He had, of course, supported whatever policy his party at any time advocated, for he was always a faithful partisan, but he had never cared much for anything except protection. Cleveland had given the country 'free trade,' and thus precipitated financial distress; McKinley would restore protection, and prosperity would come in its train—the advance agent of prosperity,' an admirer styled him. This was what he meant to run on. The national platform must have planks

on other subjects, however, and the must puzzling was the question of the national finances. For many years the silver question, in various forms, had been before the country. Not long after the close of the Civil War there was an earnest attempt to secure further inflation of the currency, which was depreciated much below gold, the first demand being for the issue of a great additional quantity of greenbacks. The movement was favored by most Democrats and by many Republicans, but it was finally defeated when President Grant vetoed the so-called Inflation bill in 1875.

Sixteen to One.-"The next form which the craze took was that of a demand for the free coinage of silver at the ratio of sixteen to one, which came before Congress during Mr. McKinley's first session. Most Democrats favored this policy also, and so did many Republicans, especially in the States beyond the Alleghanies. Every Representative was thus at liberty to vote as he chose, and on the fifth of November, 1877, Mr. McKinley cast his vote for a free-coinage scheme, urged by 'Silver Dollar' Bland, of Missouri. He had plenty of company among Republican Congressmen from his own State, Indiana and the Middle West generally, but many of the ablest members were on the other side, like Garfield and Reed. It was impossible to carry the scheme through Congress, but a compromise was cooked up, which provided for the cumpulsory coinage of not less than $2,000,000 nor more than $4,000,000 silver bullion a month. This also was objected to by the sound-money men, and was vetoed by Mr. McKinley's old war commander, President Hayes, but the young Congressman refused to sustain the veto, taking his stand with those who wanted to 'do something for silver,' and who would take a half loaf if they could not get the whole.

Both Parties Dallied.-"As time passed both parties dallied with the question. Mr. Cleveland earnestly opposed free coinage, and during his first term repressed the disposition of many Democratic Congressmen to make it a feature of party policy. Meanwhile many Repub

lican leaders were timid. They advanced far enough to pronounce against free coinage, but they shrank from declaring openly for the gold standard, and sought to devise some compromise which would satisfy the silver men of the further West without too much offending the sound-money people of the East. What came to be known as the Sherman Silver Purchase Act was adopted as the way out of the difficulty during the first session of Congress under Harrison. It substituted for the existing system of silver coinage the purchase by the government of silver bullion to the amount of 4,500,000 ounces a month. As leader of the House, Mr. McKinley carried this measure through the lower branch, and he shared in the satisfaction expressed by many of the party managers over what was considered a very shrewd 'dodge,' by which they had avoided actual support of free coinage, which was offensive in the East, and could still get credit in the West by boasting, as the Indiana Republican platform of 1890 did, that the party had taken 'a long yet prudent step toward free coinage.' After he lost his seat in Congress, Mr. McKinley continued to make bids for the support of the silver men, taking pains to denounce Mr. Cleveland for his firm adherence to the gold standard.

Growth of Sound-Money Sentiment.-"Sound-money sentiment grew in strength among the Republicans as time passed, but there was still an element in the party, especially beyond the Mississippi, which clung stoutly to the silver fallacy. Mr. McKinley's tendency always was to compromise, and he wanted to have a plank on the financial question in the platform of the Republican National Convention which would not offend either side, and then make the tariff the chief issue. But the sound-money men in the convention were strong enough to force a plank which went so far toward the gold standard that the pronounced silver men walked out of the hall, under the lead of Senator Teller. The Democrats, on the other hand, rushed to the other extreme by declaring outright for 'sixteen to one,' and nominating as their candidate William J. Bryan, who made the fight upon that issue.

A Reluctant Champion of Gold.-"The Republicans who in 1877 had favored free coinage, who in 1890 had endorsed a long step' in that direction, and who in 1896 wished still to figure as a 'friend of silver,' were thus compelled reluctantly to appear as the champion of the gold standard. With equal reluctance, Democrats and Independents who abominated a high tariff, and who would have voted against Mr. McKinley if the tariff had been the issue, were compelled to support him as the only way to insure the maintenance of the gold standard and the preservation of the national honor. It was the most extraordinary campaign which had ever been known, in the fact that many of the successful party's most effective advocates, like Carl Schurz, were men who distrusted its candidate, were dissatisfied with his record, and were hostile to the protective system which he championed, and yet felt constrained to urge his election, in order to avert the success of a nominee and a policy that were alike intolerable. The result was the success of Mr. McKinley by 271 out of 447 votes in the electoral college, and over 600,000 plurality in the popular vote."

XII.

PRESIDENT OF ALL THE PEOPLE.

The election to the Presidency came to Mr. McKinley when he was fifty-three years old, after a long experience in public life as Congressman and after valuable executive training as Governor of his native State. He had also come in touch with the people in a way that put him thoroughly in sympathy with the country's hopes and aspirations. He believed he knew what the people believed in, and was convinced that he knew the policies that would insure their welfare and the permanent revival of the industries of the country.

A Man of the People.-When he went into the White House he was hand in hand with the plain people of the nation, and he remained with them to the end. As I have already said, he had a faculty for making friends, and at the time of his election he had hosts of them in every part of the country. He had a remarkable talent for getting on with the people everywhere, and he soon came to be on the very best of terms, not only with every member of his own party in each branch of Congress, but also with nearly all of the Senators and Representatives of the opposition.

Perhaps nothing gave him more pleasure during his public life than the opportunities which he took whenever available to mingle with the people. He particularly resembled Abraham Lincoln in his fondness for the plain masses. In his tours through the country he was always democratic in his familiar greetings of the crowds, and in his efforts to make them feel that they were of the same blood with him.

On one of these tours it is related that in a small town in Illinois when the President's train was just leaving the station, a man who up to that time had had no chance to get near the President's car fought his way through the crowd, climbed to the rear platform, thrust his hand over the rail and cried: