The misfortune was due to the business failure of his friend, Robert L. Walker, of Youngstown, Ohio, which swept away not only all his own wealth, but that of Governor McKinley as well. The facts of the case are briefly as follows:

The two men had known each other from boyhood, and had always been close friends. As a young law student, a struggling lawyer, and a Congressman, Major McKinley had several times been aided with loans of money by Mr. Walker. These loans were chiefly needed to enable Major McKinley to meet his campaign assessment. As his reputation grew, the assessments ceased, he paid back the loans, and in the last ten years of his Congressional career, he succeeded in accumulating about $20,000, which he invested in real estate and securities. His wife had inherited a fortune of about $75,000 from her father. Early in 1893, Mr. Walker went to the Governor and asked him for assistance. The banker said that he was hard pressed for ready money, and he wished the Governor to indorse his notes, which he then intended to have discounted. Without hesitation, the Governor cheerfully consented to give this aid to the old friend who had helped him in his early years, and indorsed about $15,000 worth of paper, payable in thirty, sixty and ninety days. This paper, he was assured, would be discounted in three well-known banks. Later on he indorsed a number of notes which, he understood, were made for the purpose of taking up the notes which he had first indorsed, and which had become due. Mr. Walker was at this time the president of a national bank, a savings bank, a stamping mill company and a stove and range company, and was interested in several coal mines in Ohio and Pennsylvania. He was credited with possessing a fortune of more than $250,000, and his personal and business standing was so high that a prominent Ohio business man said that he would have indorsed Mr. Walker's paper for half a million dollars the day before his failure.

When, in addition to these facts, it is remembered that he had been a boyhood companion and generous friend of Governor

McKinley, it is not to be wondered at that the latter trusted him implicitly. On the day that the Walker failure was announced, Governor McKinley was about to start for New York to attend the annual dinner of the Ohio Society in that city. He at once cancelled the engagement, and went to Youngstown. There he found that banks all over the State held Walker paper indorsed by him, and that, instead of being liable for $15,000 worth, he was liable for nearly $100,000 worth. Five days afterward he and his wife made an assignment of all their property to three trustees, to be used, without preference, for the equal benefit of the Walker creditors. Mrs. McKinley was urged to keep her interest in her property, but she declined to do so. The news of the misfortune and of the position taken by Mr. McKinley and his wife aroused a wide-spread feeling of sympathy and a desire to help them in their trouble. A popular fund was started, but the Governor returned the contributions that were forwarded to him, thanking those who sent them for the good will shown, but positively refusing to accept the profferred aid. Then a number of personal friends decided to raise a private fund. Again the Governor, as soon as he heard of it, interposed, and declined absolutely to receive any assistance; but his friends persisted in the plan, pointing out to him that many of the subscriptions were anonymous, and, therefore, could not be returned. To his last day, with the possible exception of four or five subscribers, he did not know who contributed to the fund. fast as the Walker notes were presented the treasurer of the fund took them up, and when the last one had been paid Mrs. McKinley's property was restored to her, and the Governor's original modest. fortune of $20,000, with a little more added, was returned to him.

As

At the close of his second term as Governor there was no question of his renomination. He had grown above the level of serving as the chief magistrate of a State and was about to be called to a much more exalted position, that of the executive head of the nation.

CHAPTER XI

The St. Louis Convention and Nomination

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S an essential preliminary to the story of McKinley's nomination for the Presidency in 1896, his standing and honorable attitude before the two preceding Conventions must be given. In 1884 Mr. McKinley was a Delegate-at-Large from Ohio to the Republican Nominating Convention, and helped to place James G. Blaine on the ticket. At the National Convention of 1888 he represented Ohio in the same capacity and was an earnest and loyal supporter of John Sherman. At that Convention, after the first day's balloting, the indications were that Mr. McKinley himself might be made the candidate. Then his strength of purpose and his high ideas of loyalty and honor showed themselves, for in an earnest and stirring speech he demanded that no vote be cast for him. From the first, two delegates had been voting persistently for him, although he had not, of course, been formally placed in nomination. Now the number of his supporters rose to fourteen. All the Republican Congressmen at Washington telegraphed to the Convention urging his nomination. The air became electrified with premonitions of a stampede.

Mr. McKinley had listened to the announcement of the two votes for him on each ballot with mingled annoyance and amusement. But now the case was growing serious. The next ballot might give him a majority of the whole Convention. He had only to sit still and the ripe fruit would drop into his hands. He had only to utter an equivocal protest and the result would be the same. But there was nothing equivocal about William McKinley. On one side was his personal honor; on the other side the Presidency of the United States. In choosing between the two, hesitation was

impossible. He sprang to his feet with an expression upon his face and an accent in his voice that thrilled the vast assembly, but hushed it mute and silent as the grave while he spoke :

"I am here as one of the chosen representatives of my State. I am here by resolution of the Republican State Convention, passed without a single dissenting vote, commanding me to cast my vote for John Sherman for President and to use every worthy endeavor for his nomination. I accepted the trust because my heart and my judgment were in accord with the letter and spirit and purpose of that resolution. It has pleased certain delegates to cast their votes for me for President. I am not insensible to the honor they would do me, but in the presence of the duty resting upon me, I cannot remain silent with honor.

"I cannot, consistently with the wish of the State whose credentials I bear and which has trusted me; I cannot with honorable fidelity to John Sherman; I cannot, consistently with my own views of personal integrity, consent, or seem to consent, to permit my name to be used as a candidate before this Convention. I would not respect myself if I should find it in my heart to do so, or permit to be done that which would ever be ground for any one to suspect that I wavered in my loyalty to Ohio or my devotion to the chief of her choice and the chief of mine. I do not request, I demand, that no delegate who would not cast reflection upon me shall cast a ballot for me.

That ended it, and the threatened stampede was averted. But, although the nomination was not forced upon Mr. McKinley, neither could he secure it for Mr. Sherman, although he loyally strove to do so till the end.

Mr. McKinley again occupied a seat as a Delegate-at-Large from Ohio in the National Convention of 1892, and was made the Permanent Chairman of the Convention. On this occasion an incident similar to that of 1888 occurred. Mr. McKinley was pledged in honor to the support of President Harrison for renomination, and he, as earnestly and as loyally as he had supported Mr. Sherman

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four years before, labored for Mr. Harrison's success. The Republican leaders who were opposed to Harrison's renomination sought to accomplish their purpose by stampeding the Convention for McKinley himself.

When the roll was being called and Ohio was reached, Governor Foraker, one of the delegates from that State, rose and said that Ohio wanted time to consult. After a pause Mr. Nash, a district delegate, announced the vote as 2 for Harrison and 44 for McKinley. Chairman McKinley sprang from his seat and shouted back that he challenged the vote. Mr. Foraker responded that the chairman was not a member of the delegation. "I am a member of the delegation," retorted Chairman McKinley.

"The gentleman's alternate has taken his place in the delegation, and the gentleman is not recognized as a member of the delegation now, and we make that point of order," came back from Foraker.

"The Chair overrules the point of order and asks the secretary to call the roll of Ohio," said Mr. McKinley.

The reading clerk called the roll, and the result was McKinley 44, Harrison 2. A delegate changed his vote, and then it stood McKinley 45, Harrison 1.

The contest between the chairman and the Ohio delegation and the calling of the roll had consumed some time, and the stampede was checked.

The roll-call proceeded, Harrison receiving 535 votes, McKinley 182, Thomas B. Reed 4, Robert T. Lincoln 1.

So General Harrison was renominated, and he owed the honor largely to McKinley. The latter was chairman of the committee. that went to Washington to notify President Harrison officially of his renomination. In the address made by him on that occasion there was no tone of disappointment, but the speech rang with words of hope and cheer for the party.