concentrating and organizing the McKinley sentiment throughout the country. With McKinley's great personal strength with the people and Hanna's superb direction, McKinley rapidly took the lead in the race, and finally ended the contest some weeks before the meeting of the Convention, by going into New England and breaking the Reed forces in his own home by carrying Vermont and New Hampshire practically for himself. Reed was thus

forces divided,

powerless to make a battle with his New England and when the Convention met at St. Louis on the 16th of June, the nomination of McKinley was so generally conceded that the first and only ballot, gave him 6611⁄2 votes to 841⁄2 for Reed, 611⁄2 for Quay, 58 for Governor Morton, 35% for Allison, and 1 for Senator Cameron.

The national battle of 1896 gave a crucial test of the intellectual and personal qualities of the two opposing candidates for President. William Jennings Bryan had by a grand oratorical effort swept away the Democratic Convention in a tempest of applause, and it was a battle royal from start to finish. Bryan's wonderful physical power, his fluency of speech, his great adaptability to all the duties and arts of the platform, and his tireless efforts aroused his supporters to the highest degree of enthusiasm. He spoke not only daily but often many times a day, and in the early part of the contest his election appeared to be more than possible. The vital issue of the conflict was the question of maintaining a sound financial policy, as against the seductive appeals in favor of cheap money at a time when labor was unrequited and industry and trade greatly paralyzed; but McKinley gave repeated utterances during the struggle which steadily sobered the people, and long before election day the tide was obviously in favor of McKinley's election, notwithstanding the fearful depression which prevailed. In that contest, as uniformly in Congress, he stood resolutely and aggressively for the maintenance of the national. credit inviolate, and the great business interests of the country were rallied to his support with such earnestness as to divert from

the Democratic party very many of its ablest and most influential leaders to the support of a third ticket or to the direct support of McKinley. The result was McKinley's election by a popular majority of nearly half a million over Bryan, and by a vote of 271 for McKinley in the electoral college to 176 for Bryan.

The election of McKinley to the Presidency in 1896 was a counter revolution of the Democratic revolution that had carried Cleveland into the Presidency in 1892 by large popular and electoral majorities, and it necessarily involved an entire change of the economic policy of the Government. The McKinley administration was supported by a party majority in both branches of Congress, and a new tariff bill, that is yet in existence, was speedily enacted. The severe depression that had continued from 1893 until 1896 was gradually passing away when McKinley was elected, and his success gave new impetus to the great industrial interests of the country. Fortunate conditions gave increased prices for the products of our industry, especially of our farms, and he had every prospect of having a most successful and serene administration until the dark cloud of war that hung over Cuba extended its pall over our Republic. The destruction of the battleship Maine quickened the hostility of the American people against the Spanish rule in Cuba to an extent that made war inevitable.

McKinley earnestly strove to avert the calamity of war. Like Lincoln, all his instincts were on the side of humanity, and but for the destruction of the Maine that called out a resistless popular sentiment in favor of war, there is little doubt that McKinley, with all his sympathies on the side of peace, would have averted the conflict with Spain. When the grave duty of accepting war was inevitable, he rose to every requirement of the exceptionally grave emergency, and in the short conflict between the armies and navies of the two Governments, the heroism of our army and navy was made to stand out even in grander lustre than ever before. For the first time in the history of naval warfare, two naval battles were fought in which every vessel of the squadrons

of the enemy was entirely destroyed, and the Spanish army finally surrendered to a United States army not superior to it in numbers and lacking its advantages of position.

When the first opportunity for securing peace was presented, President McKinley was prompt and tireless in pressing for its attainment. He was compelled to meet the gravest problems ever presented to our statesmanship, with the single exceptions of the problems thrust upon the Government by secession in 1861; but McKinley, always in the forefront to create and maintain the policy he had adopted, speedily accomplished a treaty with Spain that gave to this country all the Spanish possessions in the West Indies. with the exception of Cuba, and the entire Philippine archipelago, in the East. He was slow to accept the policy of expansion to the extent to which it was carried, but, like Lincoln, he was ever ready to meet new necessities; and it is well known that while at one time he would have accepted a mere coaling station in the Philippines, and later probably the single province of Luzon, he finally bowed to the resistless logic of events that so clearly demanded the acceptance of all the important Spanish provinces in both the West Indies and in the East. His policy of expansion was fiercely assailed by his political opponents and by some able members of his own party, but the best evidence of the mandatory sentiment of the sovereign people of the nation in requiring the policy of expansion, is given in the fact that when the Paris treaty was before the Senate for confirmation, and was opposed by some of the President's party supporters, Mr. Bryan, his Presidential competitor, went to Washington and publicly and privately urged the confirmation of the treaty. No higher vindication of the policy of the President could have been furnished, and no more conclusive expression could have been given as to the general convictions of the American people.

Beyond the war with Spain and the enactment of a new tariff, the first administration of McKinley was not specially eventful. It was confronted by no great political convulsions, as his party

majority was maintained in both branches of Congress during the entire term; and as the period approached for choosing the candidates for the national battle of 1900, he was in the field practically without a competitor. The Convention was held in Philadelphia on the 19th of June, with Senator Wolcott as temporary chairman and Senator Lodge, of Massachusetts, as permanent chairman. No name was presented or even discussed for the Presidency but that of McKinley. Some of the enthusiastic supporters of Roosevelt meditated an attempt to stampede the Convention to their favorite for President, but the delegates were so solidly devoted to McKinley that the movement was found to be impracticable. McKinley was nominated on the first roll call, receiving 924 votes, being the full membership of the Convention. Theodore Roosevelt was then nominated for Vice-President, receiving 923 votes, being one vote less than the full membership, and that vote his own, as he was at the head of the New York delegation. The Democratic National Convention presented an equally unanimous sentiment in favor of the renomination of William J. Bryan, and thus the two leaders who had locked horns four years before, again took the field in a desperate struggle for political supremacy; but Bryan was at a great disadvantage because of the general prosperity of the country, the nearly universal employment of labor at fair wages, and the next to universal thrift in all business and industrial channels. Bryan, however, repeated his aggressive campaign of 1896, exhibiting variance only in his somewhat tempered attitude on the financial question. His speeches of this campaign exhibited more of the statesman and not so much of the politician, as did his great speeches in the first struggle, and he commanded very general respect wherever he went, even from those who were politically opposed to him. McKinley was heard only on a few occasions during the conflict, but his utterances were always of the most temperate, forceful and impressive character, and strengthened the already very great confidence that the country reposed in him. The result was his re-election by the largest popular majority ever