land Scotch, brawny and brainy men, who needed only the opportunities and enlightenment of education. They were not of the royalist tribes of Scotland, but a sturdy set, with a determined though imperfectly developed idea of freedom. Liberty of conscience was real with them, and they left the Highlands for the north of Ireland, seeking independence, and thence to America for the greater liberty they found and helped to perpetuate.

James McKinley, a fine Scotch-Irish lad of twelve years, was the first to come to America. He was the father of David McKinley, the great-grandfather of the Republican candidate for the Presidency. William McKinley came to America with James, and settled in the South, where his descendants have been and are men of distinction. David McKinley was a revolutionary soldier, one of the sort not remembered in history, except under the grand classification of privates.

On his grandmother's side McKinley comes of equally good and sturdy stock, Mary Rose, who married James McKinley, the second, having come from Holland, where her ancestors had fled to escape religious tyranny in England. The first of the Rose family to emigrate to America was Andrew, who came with William Penn and was one of the representatives of the thirteen colonies before the rebellion against Great Britain. He owned the land on which Doylestown stands to-day. It was his son, Andrew Rose, who was the father of Mary Rose, the mother

of William McKinley, Sr. This Andrew Rose did more than double duty in the war for freedom against Great Britain. He fought and made weapons to fight with.

This is an ancestry typically American, one of soldiers and workers for the country's welfare and wealth, and McKinley's good fortune cast his lot in a happy home, where the true mother imbued the children with love of God and the country.

In the small town of Niles, in the county of Trumbull, Ohio's great son, whom the Republicans have just nominated for the Presidency, was born in an unpretentious frame building, a house that was partly dwelling and partly country store, the dwelling very neat and bright-a good home. There was no silver spoon in William McKinley's mouth, though his parents were comfortably situated. The Major was the seventh child, and after him there were born a girl and a boy.

If William McKinley is not a member of the "Sons of the American Revolution," he has a perfect right to become one, for he has Revolutionary ancestors on both sides. His great-grandfather, David McKinley, a Pennsylvanian, served in the Revolutionary War, enlisting at twenty-one, serving for one year and nine months. His great-grandfather on his grandmother's side was not only a soldier but he was a good mechanic, and molded bullets and made cannon balls for the men who were fighting for freedom. He was enlisted in the Revolution, and added

to his services the mechanical genius which he possessed. This union of the excellent qualities of a soldier and chanic was of excellent service to the

cause.

They

David McKinley's second son, James, married Mary Rose, daughter of Andrew Rose, Jr., the revolutionary soldier and founder. James McKinley raised a large family. Indeed, that seems to have been characteristic of the stock. His second son, William, born in Pennsylvania, was the father of the present Republican candidate for President. William McKinley, Sr., married Nancy Campbell Allison. The Allisons were good stock. came from England to Virginia and multiplied, the branch from which Mrs. William McKinley, Sr., sprung emigrating to Pennsylvania. Major MeKinley's grandfather, Abner Allison, married Ann Campbell, in Green County, Pennsylvania, in 1798. Ann Campbell was of Scotch-German origin. The family moved to New Lisbon, Ohio, where their ten children were born. It was at New Lisbon, in 1827, that William McKinley, Sr., married Nancy Campbell Allison. It may be interesting to state that, could the lines be fully followed out, it would be found that Major McKinley is a third or fourth cousin, possibly fifth or sixth, of William B. Allison, of Iowa, who was a candidate for the Presidency at St. Louis. The Allisons spread through the western country, some of them settling in the vicinity of Chillicothe. It was probably from the Pennsylvania

branch that William B. Allison sprung, for he was born in Ohio, in a portion of the State not far from New Lisbon.

It is noticeable that the McKinleys and the families into which they married were all industrious, hard-working people, religiously inclined, patriots and pioneers-a hardy race that baffled with difficulty and helped in carving a civilization out of a wilderness. The McKinley-Rose-Allison families were all Pennsylvanians originally, and a people with a trend toward the iron business. The Roses were iron founders, so was McKinley's father, while his mother's people were farmers. The combination of tillers of the soil and molders of the ore was a good one, and added much to the strength of character and the industrious application that is so characteristic of Major McKinley.

Mr. and Mrs. William McKinley, Sr., settled first at Fairfield, Ohio, another small town. There, in Columbiana County, which is now a part of the Eighteenth Ohio District, which his son represented for fourteen years in Congress, the father established an iron foundry, and for two decades he had interests in iron furnaces in New Wilmington, Ohio. It is interesting to observe that McKinley's ancestry makes it possible to trace his character. The lines of activity pursued by his forefathers were such as to leave their impress upon their offspring, and much as Major McKinley owes to his own energy and labor, the tendency to study, to activity, and to

continued effort was inherited. He had opportu nities for application, and to his credit be it said he did not neglect them. He had openings and chances broader and better than his ancestors, and took advantage of them. It is seen from this short reference to his ancestry that Major McKinley was one of the people born in plain, respectable, and religious surroundings. He did not have the advantages nor the embarrassments of a great name, but proceeded by his own effort, by his own continuity of purpose, by study and energy, to make his name great.

William McKinley had a good mother. That she is now living, strong and well, with as active an intellect as ever at eighty-seven, is one of his great joys. Vigorous and energetic and strong as his father was, William McKinley, Jr., had the benefit of a mother's training, of her love and devotion, of her gentle guidance, of her religious instruction. Mrs. McKinley, as most mothers of large families, was enabled to do more for her children because they were numerous than had she but one or two. The danger of being spoiled was obviated, and the association with brothers and sisters naturally produced a thoughtfulness for others, a regard for different opinions, and at the same time helped develop an ability to care for himself, since in a family of many members, no matter how harmonious and loving it be, there is always a struggle for supremacy, particularly when there is an inheritance of aggressiveness.