Kelly, of Pennsylvania, the oldest member in continuous service, and a living cyclopedia of facts on all subjects relating to tariff, taxation and industrial conditions. "Pig-iron Kelly" he was nicknamed, on account of his persistent advocacy of high duties on iron. McKinley may be said to have sat at the feet of Kelly during his first two terms in Congress. When visiting newspaper men asked the old occupants of the reporters' gallery who that young man was that so strikingly resembled the pictures of Napoleon the reply was usually, "Oh, that's old Pig-iron Kelly's lieutenant, Major McKinley, of Ohio." The old Philadelphia statesman warmly appreciated this attitude of pupil to master on the part of the serious and studious young member from Ohio, and he more than once said that when he left Congress he hoped that his mantle as the leader of the protectionists would fall upon McKinley's shouders. Whether McKinley then looked forward ambitiously to the possibilities of future leadership I cannot say, but he certainly took every means at hand to equip himself for the position that afterward came to him as a conceded right. He was a hard student of the history of tax and tariff measures and of their influence on industrial conditions, and his memory became a storehouse of facts that served

MAJOR M'KINLEY AS CONGRESSMAN.

him as keen weapons in debate. When he was put upon the Ways and Means Committee, at the session which began in 1881, taking Garfield's old place, his fitness for the work was acknowledged on all hands. During his first term the House heard but little from him, but before the close of his second term he had won a reputation as a singularly clear and logical debater, who had a great talent for marshaling facts in order like a column of troops and throwing them against the vital point in a controversy. He had a pleasing voice of good, strong quality, he never rambled, he told no anectodes, he indulged in no sophomoric flights of oratory; he went straight to the marrow of his theme by processes of argument and illustration so clear, simple and direct that he won respect and admiration from both sides of the House. One of his leading opponents used to say that he had to brace himself mentally not to be carried away by the strong undercurrent of McKinley's smooth and persuasive talk.

After 1882 all of McKinley's nominations for Congress were given him by acclamation. He had become much the strongest member of the Ohio delegation and nobody wanted to contest the district for his seat. Democratic legislatures tried three times to throw him out of Congress by changing the

boundaries of his district so as to make it heavily Democratic on national issues, but he overcame every hostile majority until 1890, when the old Republican counties of Mahoning and Columbiana were left out in the gerrymander and the two unwavering Demo. cratic counties of Wayne and Holmes were added to Stark so as to put McKinley in a district with a hostile majority of nearly four thousand. He made a tremendous fight against hopeless odds, stumping the district from town to town, and he cut down the adverse majority to 303, polling 2500 more votes than had been given to Harrison in 1888. His defeat made him Governor of Ohio the next year, and the people of the state rebuked the partisanship that threw out of Congress the most prominent and the most useful of all the Ohio repre sentatives by giving him a substantial majority of about 21,000.

THE CHAMPION OF THE PROTECTION IDEA.

McKinley's first speech in Congress was on the tariff and his last speech was on the same theme. From the beginning of his public career he has been 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

He

our vast and desirable American markets. is not, as was Garfield, for such protection as will lead to ultimate free trade. He believes 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 has no patience with tariffs formed to afford incidental protection." Tariff bills, he thinks, 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.

To understand the strength and sincerity of McKinley's convictions on the tariff question one must be somewhat familiar with his environment in Ohio. The portion of the state in which he lives has become a great hive of shop and factory industries during his lifetime. He has seen his own town of Canton grow from a population of 4,000 to one of 35,000. A little east of him and in his old eighteenth district is Youngstown, which had 2,500 people when he lived in Poland and has now 35,000. Salem, nearer his home, has increased from 2,000 to 10,000. Akron, about twenty miles north of Canton, claims 40,000 people and had not more than 3,000 when McKinley was a boy.

All these towns, and a dozen more in the same section of Ohio, such as Niles, Massillon, Alliance, Mansfield and Wooster, have prospered thus notably on the basis of protected manufacturing industries. Cleveland, the city of the region, had perhaps 100,000 people when Major McKinley was first elected to Congress in 1876 and has now 325,000, and all its growth in these past twenty years has come from the development of iron, steel and allied industries. Is it any wonder that McKinley should be an ardent champion of protection with these striking object

lessons all around him, or that he should have welcomed the leadership and instruction of William D. Kelly, as soon as he reached Washington, and should then have begun the task of studying the history and science of tariffs? Nor was it alone in the towns of Ohio that McKinley thought he saw the manifest benefits of protective legislation. His home county of Stark is one of the richest and handsomest farming districts in the United States. The rolling landscape presents views of agricultural prosperity which recall the Midland counties of England. The farmsteads, flanked by apple orchards and grain fields and pastures, peer out upon the well-kept highways through screens of cherry trees, maples and lilac bushes, and the big red barns speak of good care for stock and of abundant harvests. All the land is tilled or grazed save the wood lots, of which every farmer has one of from five to ten acres, to furnish fuel and to give his children the delights of an autumn nutting season and of a fortnight of maple sugar making in the early spring. The farms will not average much over eighty acres in extent and the farm-homes give unmistakable evidences of absence of mortgages and of all the means needed for rural comfort. It will hardly be controverted that the prosperity of this large rural population and this almost ideal condition of farm life is due to the fact that there is a market in the many manufacturing towns for everything the farmer has to sell, whether it be currants or cattle, pigs or poultry, apples or asparagus. If Stark county depended solely on raising wheat to ship to Europe and cattle to feed eastern cities it could not possibly present its present aspect of a dense rural population living in a condition of prosperity that to a European peasant would seem to be opulence. Major McKinley has had before him this cheery spectacle of rural progress and comfort beside that of the growth of the towns ever since he hung up his sword and opened his law books. If he had not been gifted with a mind prone to original thought and research he would have absorbed his tariff views from his environment.

A GREAT CAMPAIGNER.

Ohio has produced two of the three greatest political campaigners of my day-James A. Garfield and William McKinley. I need hardly say that the third was James G. Blaine, of Maine. The chief qualities that go to the making of a really great stump orator are simplicity and directness of statement, a clear, far-reaching voice, a winning personality, an inborn faculty for giving to spoken thoughts such a projectile force as will secure for them a lodgment in other minds, and finally, physical endurance. All these qualifications McKinley possesses to a high degree. He has not as wide a range of thought and illustration as Garfield had, and he is not as magnetic and as spontaneous as Blaine was; but neither of those two superb orators had as great a gift for going straight to the understandings of plain people as he possesses. He never tells

a story in his speeches; he is the personification of seriousness and earnestness. He quotes no poetry, he strives for no merely oratorical effects; he never abuses his political antagonists or the opposition party. He always starts out to convince the understanding of his hearers; then, when he has presented his facts and set forth his processes of reasoning, quietly, logically and persuasively, he warms up, his deep-set eyes glow, his form seems to tower, his voice rings out like a trumpet and he drives in his argument with sledge-hammer blows of short, sonorous, epigrammatic sentences. He has wonderful staying qualities. He is never exhausted. To every fresh audience he brings the charm of a vigorous presence. He has extended his stump-speaking work from his county to his Congressional district, from his district to his state and from his state to the whole country; and I do not believe there is a public man of this day who has made as many addresses or talked to as many people. During his

great stumping tour in 1894, which unquestionably won for him the presidential nomination, more than two millions of people in eighteen states heard his voice. Once he made seventeen speeches in twenty-four hours. At Hutchinson, Kansas, thirty thousand people assembled to hear him, and in Topeka his audience was estimated at twenty-five thousand.

Major McKinley is charged with being a man of one idea. It is true that a very large number of his speeches have dealt with the tariff question, but he is by no means deficient in grasp of other public issues and in a stout volume of his addresses which I have before me I find that he has treated on public platforms the following topics, among many others: Free and fair elections, equal suffrage, labor arbitration, public schools, the American farmer, civil service reform, the American volunteer soldier, the silver question, the eight hour law, the Hawaiian treaty, the American workman, and in memorial

addresses the characters and careers of Garfield, Grant, Logan, Hayes and Wm. D. Kelley, and that he has brought to all these themes the same evi dences of careful study and of sincere conviction and has displayed in their treatment the same power of clear and direct presentation which characterize his many speeches on the tariff.

GOVERNOR OF OHIO.

Major McKinley was twice nominated for Governor of Ohio by acclamation and twice elected, the second time by the phenomenal majority of 80,995 —a majority that was the most thorough popular endorsement possible of his first administration. The Governorship of Ohio is an office of more dignity than real power. The State constitution gives to the chief executive no right of veto over bills passed by the legislature and he therefore forms no part of the law-making power. When a bill has passed both houses it is signed by the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House and then becomes a law. The Governor may address the legislature in messages on pending matters of general state concern, but it would be regarded as highly improper for him to use his personal influence with members for or against any bill. The only exception to this rule of unwritten law is where some measure is under consideration which contravenes or seeks to give effect to a plainly declared principle of the party which elected the Governor, a principle set forth in its platform and passed upon by the people at an election. Concerning such measures a Governor may put forth the influence of his personal views and his political station. It would therefore be absurd to go over the mass of Ohio legislation from January, 1892, to January, 1896, the period covered by Governor McKinley's term, to make points for or against him in the present presidential can

vass.

For that legislation he was not responsible. The appointing power of an Ohio Governor is pretty closely limited to members of the boards which manage the numerous penal, benevolent and educational institutions of the state and of such commissions as are instituted by the legislature for temporary service, but even this power is restricted by established custom. Most of the boards are composed of five members and the custom is that three shall be taken from one of the two great political parties and two from the other. In the past it has often happened that boards have been legislated out of office bodily by partisan majorities in the General Assembly, to give the party in power a chance to fill them with its own people, but the progress of opinion brought this vicious practice to a close some time before McKinley entered the State House.

Governor McKinley's messages to the legislature were a suprise to political opponents who regarded him as a one-idea statesman. They showed an intimate acquaintance with the affairs of the state and a broad comprehension of all matters affecting public interests. He discussed the problems of taxation, and the very serious problems of municipal govern

ment; he urged the building of good roads, opposed the careless authorization of local indebtedness that had become an evil; he favored short sessions and little legislation; he advocated laws for the protection of workingmen engaged in hazardous occupations, and he was a notable champion of the principle of arbitration for the settlement of disputes between employers and employees. It was largely through his influence that a state Board of Arbitration was established, and that the great coal miners' strike in the Hocking Valley and in the Massillon region was brought to an end. Ohio history will rank McKinley among the really eminent Governors of the Buckeye state-with Vinton, Meigs, Chase, Brough, Dennison and Hayes.

PERSONAL TRAITS.

William McKinley is a stockily built man of medium stature. His body is long above the hips and this peculiarity makes him look to be much taller when he is sitting down than he really is. His frame is muscular and he must have had great physical strength as a young man. The head would be called massive and an unusually large part of it is in front of the ears. The upper lip is noticeably broad, the chin is large and firm, the nose of good size and symmetrical shape, the forehead wide and high, and the eyes are large and of a dark gray color. They are shaded by projecting brows and at night they appear to be almost black. The hair is thin and straight and is just beginning to turn gray. The habitual expression of the face is one of gravity and kindness. If the phrase did not sound too sentimental the fittest words to characterize McKinley's look would be a sweet seriousness. His manners are very cordial and they do not seem to have been cultivated for political popularity, for you will note many little acts of kindness and attention that are not called for by ordinary politeness. He is as amiable with secretaries, stenographers and servants as with senators and governors. He accompanies his visitors to the hall door and cautions them about the steps, on which an electric street lamp throws a mass of shadow from the foliage. He is not in the least effusive-on the contrary his habitual attitude in conversation is one of reserve--but the friendliness of his manner impresses you as genuine. He usually dresses in black and wears a frock coat but toned up, with either the tri-colored rosette of the Loyal Legion or the copper button of the Grand Army in the upper button-hole. This and a very old fashioned plain gold shirt-stud and his wedding ring are his only ornaments. His house is neatly furnished in the manner of village homes, and there is nothing noticeable in its interior except the library, which is stocked with books on history, biography, politics and economic science and displays on its walls some good engravings and photos of statesmen and war heroes.

McKinley's tastes are all simple and his habits of living have not been much changed since he was a young attorney. He eats heartily of plain food, has

a good digestion, sleeps well and takes very little exercise. His daily walk to his mother's house, which is about a half a mile from his own, is about all the muscular activity he gets. He does not make use of wine or liquors, although he is not a prohibitionist, and he has no desire to enforce his own habits in this respect on other people. He smokes four cigars a day, having lately prescribed this limit, finding he has been smoking too much. His social recreations consist in going out with his wife to some neighbor's house to take tea and spend the evening, but a great many people come to see him, and his house has always an inviting atmosphere of informality and friendliness encouraging to men and women to drop in for a chat with the Major and his wife. Every Sunday he goes to the Methodist church, which is the handsomest church edifice in Canton. There he has his membership and his pew and he is one of the sturdy pillars of the denomination. At the same time there is nothing of the bigot or the religious controversialist in him. He never discusses religion with the people of other faiths. He has his own belief and he is entirely willing that they should have theirs. He owns property which would be worth in good times about fifty thousand dollars. It is all in Canton and most of it is in the form of a business block. His failure in 1893 grew out of his endorsement of paper for a friend who ran a little bank in Poland. All of his property and all of his wife's property was then put into the hands of three trustees and they managed matters so as to pay off the debts and save all the real estate holdings of the McKinleys in Canton. It is said that the Major derives from his rents an income of between three and four thousand dollars a year.

The Major, as all his friends call him, is a fluent and interesting conversationalist. His voice is of an agreeable pitch and well modulated. His favorite topics are national history, the characters and influence of famous statesmen of the past, recollections of many prominent Americans of the present generation with whom he has come into personal association, incidents of the Civil War, and memories of early times and early friends in Ohio. His range of reading is not wide and does not go much into the fields of pure literature. Its chief tendencies are to history, biography and political economy. He reads the leading magazines and half a dozen daily papers. His favorite New York daily is the same paper copies of the weekly edition of which he used to put into the subscribers' boxes in Poland when he was a clerk in the post-office forty years ago. Occasionally, when on a journey, he reads a popular novel.

ANOTHER OHIO PRESIDENT.

Seven Presidents of the United States were born in Virginia--Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, William Henry Harrison, Tyler and Taylor; but only the first four of these made their political careers in that State. It is now nearly half a century since the last Virginian by birth, Zachary Taylor, occupied the White House. New York has

given the nation four Presidents--Van Buren, Fill. more, Arthur and Cleveland, and they were all citizens of that State at the time they held the office. Three Presidents were born in North Carolina-Jackson, Polk and Johnson, but, singularly enough, all three were elected as Tennesseeans. In Ohio were born four Presidents--Grant, Hayes, Garfield and Harrison, but Grant was elected from Illinois and Harrison from Indiana. If McKinley is elected Ohio will rank next to Virginia as a mother of Presidents. General Garfield used to account for the great prominence of Ohio men in public life in his time by saying that on the soil of Ohio met and mingled the two best strains of American blood, the Virginia strain and the New England strain All signs in the political sky now point to the election of McKinley in November, and we may well ask ourselves what sort of a President is this fifth son of Ohio, in the list of twenty-four occupants of the White House, likely to make? The question is not an enigma. The man has been eight. een years in national politics, and for much of the time a conspicuous figure; his character is an open book, and his convictions on public issues are on record and may be read by all men. We may expect from him a conservative, pure administration. I believe that it will be sturdily American in its policy, for McKinley comes from our great mid-continental plain and is not, like many men who live upon the Atlantic rim of the country, largely influenced by European thought and example. Its dominant ideas will be protection and sound money McKinley will unquestionably use the influence of his position to restore to our tariff statutes the principle of ample, scientific and symmetrical protective duties. He will oppose all efforts to detach the money of the country from the present standard in use by all the great civilized, commercial nations of the world, whether by the issue of irredeemable paper or by giving to an unlimited quantity of silver a legislative fiat value greater than its actual value as a metal. He will not, I am confident, aim to make a one man power of the administration. Having appointed a strong cabinet, made up of representative men of his party, he will distribute the duties and responsibilities of government among them, as contemplated by the constitution, and hold each minister accountable for the work of his own department. He will be accessible to all men who have legitimate business with the Chief Magistrate and he will carry to the highest station in the land the courtesy and dignity which he has unfailingly displayed as a Congressman and a Governor. He will be a harmonizer for his party, for he has none of the domineering temper and stubborn egotism that breed political strife and create personal antagonisms. Among the early Presidents his prototype will be Madison and he will most resemble Hayes among our later Presidents. He comes from the great, sturdy, independent, moral and earnest American middle class that forms the solid basis of our whole political and social fabric.