CHAPTER VIII.

PRESIDENT MCKINLEY AS A CONGRESSMAN.

Sixteen Years of "Strenuous Life" in the House-He Worked Hard, Did Not Seek to Push Himself-At Last Became a Leader and Had the Greater Share of Responsi bility for the Great Law that Bears His Name-Gerrymandered Out of the House He Had Two Terms of Governor-The Masterly Logic of McKinley in Debating the Tariff Question.

It was in connection with tariff legislation in Congress that William McKinley's reputation as a member of the House became a distinction known to the Nation. He had an early interest in and mastery of the effect of protective legislation, that is, the discrimination of the Nation in favor of American workingmen. When William McKinley, Jr., as he wrote himself during his father's life, was born, William McKinley senior was the manager of an iron furnace. The younger McKinley had practical information about the iron industry. The Civil War that broke out in 1861 found him a youth in the Allegheny college, but he entered the army and for fourteen months carried a musket. In the battle of Antietam his conduct won the hearts of his regiment. Col. R. B. Hayes had his left arm broken at South Mountain, and when at home recovering from his wound he recommended McKinley for a Lieutenant's commission, and presently got it. He was promoted for cause, and when the war neared the end he was Captain. Just a month before Lincoln fell a victim to Booth's bullet McKinley received from him a commission as a Major by brevet in the volunteer army of the United States, "for gallant and meritorious services at the battles of Opequan, Cedar Creek and Fishers Hill."

Fourteen months in the ranks in the army was a good preparation for sixteen years in Congress. It was in the Centennial year 1876 that he was first nominated for Congress. He was elected by three thousand three hundred majority. During the progress of this canvass he visited the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, and was introduced by James G. Blaine to a great audience, which he captivated by his eloquence.

He entered Congress at an auspicious time. His old Colonel, Hayes, was then President, and the friendship between them gave him at the

start an influence which it might have taken him time to win under other circumstances. But he soon commanded attention for himself. His power as a speaker gave him distinction, and his ability as a worker in committees was soon recognized. He was re-elected to the Forty-sixth, Forty-seventh, Forty-eighth, Forty-ninth, Fiftieth and Fifty-first Congresses.

When his opponents got the Legislature on local issues they added a county having a majority against the Republicans, and at last he was beaten.

In 1877 Ohio went strongly Democratic, and the Legislature gerrymandered the State so that McKinley found himself confronted by an adverse majority of 2,586 in a new district. His opponent was Gen. Aquila Wiley, who had lost a leg in the Federal service, and who was a worthy man. After a brilliant canvass McKinley was re-elected by a majority of 1,234. In 1880 his old district was restored, and he was unanimously renominated and elected by a majority of 3,571. In 1888 he showed ability in opposing the Mills bill, representing approximately President Cleveland's policy of "tariff for revenue only." When the Republicans assumed control in 1889 he was appointed chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and presently gave the Nation the great measure known as the McKinley bill.

In 1884 he was a delegate-at-large from Ohio to the National Republican Convention and helped to nominate James G. Blaine. At the next National Convention he represented the State in the same manner, and supported John Sherman. At that convention, after the first day's balloting, the indications were that McKinley himself might be nominated. Then his high ideas of loyalty and honor showed themselves, for in a stirring speech he demanded that no votes be cast for him.

Then came a period of danger to the rising young Republican of Ohio, for there were Republicans who feared the tariff issue in the form that his nomination would bring it up. He was not afraid of it and won on it.

In 1891 he was elected governor of Ohio by a majority of about 21,000 over ex-Governor James E. Campbell, the Democratic candidate. In 1892 he was again a delegate-at-large to the National Convention at Minneapolis, and was made permanent chairman. Although his name was not brought before the convention, yet he received 182 votes.

In 1893 Major McKinley was re-elected governor of Ohio by a majority of 80,995. At the expiration of his term he returned to Canton.

He had been a political speaker and leader in Congress, known and admired throughout the country.

William McKinley and Marcus A. Hanna were from the same part of the country. Hanna was the son of a graduate of the great medical school at Philadelphia and an orator. Marcus A. Hanna was a business man of courage and address and of vast and accurate intelligence. He formed the idea of going into politics because he thought business men were needed to aid in correctly informing the people; that politics should not be left exclusively in the hands of professional politicians. His acquaintance with McKinley was auspicious, agreeable and honorable to themselves and useful to the country.

MCKINLEY'S FORCEFUL LOGIC IN DEBATING THE TARIFF QUESTION IN

CONGRESS.

President McKinley, during his Congressional career, was considered one of the cleverest debaters on the Republican side of the House, and as the acknowledged champion of the policy of protection was frequently brought into verbal conflicts with the Democratic leaders, in which his mental quickness and adroitness, combined with his thorough mastery of the subject, enabled him to rout his opponent, and almost always to the great amusement of the House. Mr. McKinley did not deliberately go gunning for big game in the early days of his career to show his skill as a debater. On the contrary, he always waited until some of the most distinguished and ready debaters on the Democratic side came after him. Then, and not until then, did he talk back. Carlisle, Hewitt, Crisp, Morrison, Mills, Wilson, and Springer frequently crossed swords with him, and with all of them Mr. McKinley more than held his own.

The readiness displayed upon all occasions by Mr. McKinley in answering questions or in turning the tables upon his adversary was generally spontaneous, but the most adroit and skillful instance, when the Mills bill was under discussion, was undoubtedly premeditated. In this particular case Mr. McKinley deliberately led Congressman Leopold Morse of Massachusetts into a trap, and then emphasized a tariff lesson which made the country laugh, and has never been forgotten by those who witnessed the incident. Mr. Morse had been one of the most able lieutenants of Mr. Mills in the latter's assault on the

tariff, and with Mr. Mills had been intensely concerned at the cost of clothes to the laboring man, which, he argued, the Mills bill would reduce 100 per cent. To this Mr. McKinley replied:

"Nobody, so far as I have learned, has expressed dissatisfaction with the present price of clothing. It is a political objection; it is a party slogan. Certainly nobody is unhappy over the cost of clothing, except those who are amply able to pay even a higher price than is now exacted.

"And, besides, if this bill should pass, and the effect would be (as it inevitably must be) to destroy our domestic manufactures, the era of low prices would vanish, and the foreign manufacturer would compel the American consumer to pay higher prices than he has been accustomed to pay under the 'robber tariff,' so-called. I represent a district in which a large majority of the voters are workingmen. I have represented them for many years, and I have never had a complaint from one of them that their clothes were too high. Have you? Has any gentleman on this floor met with such complaint in his district?"

Mr. Morse "They do not buy them of me."

"No! Let us see. If they had bought of the gentleman from Massachusetts it would have made no difference, and there could have been no complaint. Let us examine the matter."

Mr. McKinley here produced a bundle containing a suit of clothes, which he opened and displayed, amid great laughter and applause.

"Come, now, will the gentleman from Massachusetts know his own goods?" he asked, amid the continued laughter of the House. "We recall, Mr. Chairman, that the Committee on Ways and Means talked about the laboring man who worked ten days at a dollar a day, and then went with his $10 wages to buy a suit of clothes. It is the old story. It is found in the works of Adam Smith. I have heard it in this House for ten years past. It has served many a free trader. It is the old story, I repeat, of the man who gets a dollar a day for his wages, and, having worked for the ten days, goes to buy his suit of clothes. He believes he can buy it for just $10, but the 'robber manufacturers' have been to Congress and have got 100 per cent put upon the goods in the shape of a tariff, and the suit of clothes, he finds, cannot be bought for $10, but he is asked $20 for it, and so he has to go back to ten days more of sweat, ten days more of toil, ten days more of wear and tear of

muscle and brain to earn the $10 to purchase the suit of clothes. Then, the chairman gravely asks, is not ten days entirely annihilated?

Now, a gentleman who read that speech, or heard it, was so touched by the pathetic story that he looked into it and sent me a suit of clothes identical with that described by the gentleman from Texas, and he sent me also a bill for it, and here is the entire suit, 'robber tariffs and taxes and all' have been added, and the retail cost is what? Just $10."

Again the House broke out into laughter and when it had quieted down Mr. McKinley continued: "So the poor fellow does not have to go back to work ten days more to get that suit of clothes. He takes the suit with him, and pays for it just $10. But in order that there might be no mistake about it, knowing the honor and honesty of the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Morse, he went to his store in Boston and bought the suit. I hold in my hand the bill."

Mr. Morse was so disconcerted by the production of the actual suit of clothes and the receipt of his own firm in the halls of Congress that he had not a word to say, nor had Mr. Mills. The House, on the Democratic side, as well as the Republican, went into a paroxysm of laughter over the manifest discomfiture of the two, after which Mr. McKinley concluded his remarks.

During the tariff debate in the early part of 1882 Mr. Hewitt of New York was considered one of the ablest and most skillful debaters in the House. He was almost as much feared by his own party, the Democratic, as he was by the Republican, because, while advocating a policy which would mean free trade, he was sufficiently interested in one great industry of the country-iron-to realize better than his Southern brethren the calamity which would have followed to American labor and industry had his policy been put in operation. In trying to reconcile his somewhat antagonistic views the attention of Mr. Hewitt was called to some glaring inconsistencies contained in a speech of his and a set of resolutions of which he was the author. He interrupted Mr. McKinley to explain that in order to preserve the iron and steel business we must do it by "a compensatory tariff." It was urged by the Democrats that the compensatory tariff was not a protective tariff.

Mr. McKinley yielded to him, and the following dialogue took place: Mr. Hewitt-"The compensation required in order to enable the iron business to exist in this country, as stated in my speech, is that