William McKinley
What the World Never Knew
Wouldn't Hurt Them.

(Click to Zoom In and Out)

Yes, the one astounding and largely unknown fact about the American presidency is that there is a bonafide folk song about William McKinley. It was first recorded by Charlie Poole and the The North Carolina Ramblers in 1926. Today it's almost always played as a Bluegrass¹ tune, although it's never quite become a standard.

But as is oft times the case with orally transmitted information (or any other kind for that matter), the song - which is usually called "The Whitehouse Blues" - has the facts a bit off. After McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz² in Buffalo, New York, on September 6, 1901, the doctors told William they were optimistic about his recovery. William did, in fact, live for eight more days before succumbing to infection, a quite common consequence for even minor wounds in those pre-antibiotic days.

First let's say that the family name of McKinley is not the most common name in the United States, but neither is it that rare. There's a bit less than 0.01% of the population bearing the name. So on the average if you see 10,000 people, odds are good that one of them's a McKinley.

But as far as being related to THE William McKinley, that's not that likely. If you have a McKinley in your family and you can trace the lineage back to Pennsylvania and Ohio, you might be related to William McKinley, Jr., the 25th³ American President. Otherwise the connection is probably too distant for William to be a bonafide relative.

William McKinley - he had no middle name - was born in Ohio in 1843. At age 18 he joined the 23rd Ohio Infantry which was mustered for the American Civil War. He was soon promoted to commissary sergeant and although commissary duty is generally seen as a non-combatant post, William was credited with bringing much needed provisions to the men in the field while the bullets were whizzing around him. By war's end he was a major - not too bad for someone who enlisted as a buck private.

After the War, William studied law and opened a practice in Canton, Ohio. He married Ida Saxton, and they had two children, neither of which, sadly, survived early childhood. Ida was never in good health afterwards, but by all accounts William remained a devoted husband and when he left the home each day he would be sure to wave to her as she looked out of her bedroom window.

As a lawyer and surprising for someone who was later seen as championing big business, William would take on cases - sometimes for nothing - representing labor unions. This made him popular with the state's working men and women.

William began his political climb in a fairly typical manner, starting with local offices and moving on up. As the case with most Union Civil War veterans he joined the party of Abraham Lincoln, the Republicans, which advocated radical stuff like votes and full civil rights for African Americans.

In 1876, William landed in Congress and served four terms. There he became a champion of protective tariffs - that is slapping duties on imported goods to make products manufactured in foreign countries more expensive than the corresponding American items. William's conviction in the benefit of tariffs earned him the nickname "The Napoleon of Protectionism".

The problem was that the - quote - "McKinley Tariff" - unquote - jacked prices up so much that Americans noticed that even domestic products had gotten more expensive. It wasn't just that American manufacturers sometimes used foreign materials. But if foreign items go up, the American businesses can at their pleasure jack their prices up, too. So within a few years William's Democratic opponents were able to push through a bill that lowered tariffs back down.

After a fourth term in Congress, William decided to return to Ohio and in 1891 he ran for the governorship, an office that he duly won. The timing was pretty good and when the election of 1896 rolled in, William was the Republican choice for President.

However, William's competition was formidable and in the person of the well-known stumper and future Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan. Bryan boasted the monicker of the Great Commoner as he supported policies benefiting average citizens over the rich fat cats.

Whether Bill Bryan (as his friends like Will Rogers called him) really did champion your average Joe and Josephine Blow is a subject of scholarly debate. But he certainly felt he did. He was a strong advocate for an income tax when it was considered a radical and extreme concept. Bill, though, saw the tax as a way of leveling income inequality and so implied that those with megabuck fortunes may not have acquired their wealth simply by merit.

One of Bill's characteristics that was even then somewhat controversial was his melding of his religious views with his politics, a stance that before the passage of the federal civil rights legislation in the mid-1960's was rare for a national politician. Bill also took to enthusiastically championing the Temperance Movement and later was one of the biggest supporters of the 18th Amendment which was intended to wean drink-sodden Americans off Demon Rum⁴. His enthusiasm for the cause was so great that he produced some embarrassment for Woodrow Wilson when as Woodrow's Secretary of State Bill would send out postcards asking people to abstain from drink. Surely, the Secretary had better things to do⁵.

After Bill lost the election to William, he by no means abandoned advocating political and social issues. Everyone knows he volunteered his legal acumen to the prosecution of the famous "Monkey Trial", but few know he stumped vigorously for the approval of the Constitution of Oklahoma, which had actually been two territories seeking statehood since the late 1890's.

Bill liked the way the proposed Oklahoma Constitution was based on the voters calling a lot of the shots (even the State Supreme Court justices were to be elected by popular vote) and told the Oklahomans that they should approve what he called "the best constitution ever written"⁶. William Howard Taft (soon to be President) was called in to rebut Bill's arguments and curmudgeonly called the document "a collection of by-laws".

Well, we won't argue with either of these illustrious gentlemen. Instead, we'll have to content ourselves with a brief excerpt where at one point - remember this is the Oklahoma Constitution - we read:

No person, company, or corporation, receiver, or other agency, operating a railroad, other than street railroad or electric railroad, in whole or in part, within this State, shall demand or receive for first class transportation for each passenger, between points within this State on the portion of its road operated within this State, more than two cents per mile, until otherwise provided by law: Provided, however, the Corporation Commission shall have the power to exempt any railroad from the operation of this section upon satisfactory proof that it cannot earn a just compensation for the services rendered by it to the public, if not permitted to charge more than two cents per mile for the transportation of passengers within the State.

You decide.

William has usually been rated as about mid-way up the ladder of Presidential Approval by historians. He did OK in some things, they say, not so great in others. However, in later years - perhaps making comparisons with more recent holders of the High Office - some historians have said William deserves a better shake than earlier critics have given him.

One of William's traits that was once considered a virtue was that he had people-skills that were second to none. He could, so they say, refuse a request and make a friend. Sometimes William would look so sad when he said no that the petitioner actually felt sorry for the President.

But a corollary criticism is that William was perhaps too friendly - particularly with the big businessmen of the era. He was a long time friend with Mark Hanna, a mega-millionaire businessman and later Senator from Ohio. In the '96 election, Mark was William's campaign manager.

Mark's strategy was that he, Mark, would go around the country and promise virtually anything to everybody if they'd pitch in for William. William then could remain home in Canton, sit on his front porch, and affably greet the many visitors who came his way⁷.

Bryan, though, as was his wont, stumped around the country delivering resounding speeches with their typically religious overtones. But the actual subjects for discussion were not religious but economic. This was, after all, a time when the "Panic of 1893" was still fresh on everyone's mind.

Called a "depression" by economic historians, the Panic of 1893 and its causes have been continually debated. But the effect of the depression was clear. It made people believe that the US economy was about to completely and utterly collapse.

Like so many dire economic predictions, this one became somewhat self-fulfilling. Depositors ran to the banks and withdrew their money. And since banks don't keep enough cash on hand to cover the deposits, they either ran out of the "ready" (to quote a former White House employee) or they had to limit the amount their clients could withdraw, in effect, holding the people's own money hostage.

Thousands of businesses and banks failed. Savings were wiped out. So in keeping with the accepted practice, the voters blamed the current administration which was headed by Grover Cleveland. Grover was a Democrat and completing his two, albeit non-consecutive terms.

So the Election of 1896 came at a horrible time if you were a Democrat wanting to step into Grover's shoes. But it was great if you were a Republican contender.

Talk of the causes of recessions and depressions (the latter word now verboten amongst modern economists) often involve mumbo-jumbo about money supplies, liquidity, and changing valuation of currency. So the big debate in the election was if the United States needed to change the way it shored up its dough.

Nope, said William and his friends. The country should stick to the gold standard. That is the value of currency must be based on a government-fixed price of gold. This keeps the money supply stable, keeps inflation in check, and assures a reliable foreign exchange rate.

But Bill and the Democrats wanted to have silver officially part of the US monetary system and to set sixteen ounces of silver to one ounce of gold. This doctrine of Free Silver, they said, would allow the amount of money to be increased but without devaluing the currency and so would increase real growth.

But Bill's opponents pooh-poohed such "bimetallism" since there was always a discrepancy between the legal exchange rate of the two metals and the true market price. As a result the money supply would actually drop since people would hoard the more expensive metal and use the cheaper metal for currency.

To the chagrin of his Republican colleagues, William, seemed surprisingly unwilling to declare himself a hardline gold "monometallist" perhaps because he saw his role as the Great Mediator. You'll read that he'd say things like he was for anything what would help "perpetuate" the gold standard. But then he'd turn around and say he was also a "friend" of bimetallism. Of course, no one knew what the heck he meant and so William acquired a new nickname, "Wobbling Willie"⁸.

But "Wobbling Willie" - a disrespectful name we will not use - had to get elected and that meant defeating Bill Bryan. But Bill was increasingly popular in rural areas and western states. Beginning in 1861 twelve new states had entered the union. All were decidedly rural and all but one were west of the Mississippi. And all but one of the states favored Bill.

It was a tribute to Bill's appeal that although the economy had tanked while a Democrat was in office, the election was surprisingly close. The popular vote difference was less than 500,000, but more telling was the division among the states, with only a 23-22 split between the candidates. But in the end, William had garnered both the popular and the electoral votes and so won the election.

There are three particulars to note about William's administration. First, he immediately called Congress into a special session and keeping with his long held philosophy pushed for higher tariffs. This wasn't just to make domestic goods more attractive. It was - so said William - a way he could lower taxes. Remember at this time there was no income tax and so most of America's federal revenue came from import duties.

All that tariff talk sounded great to American businesses and was music to the tax-payers ears. But as with Bill's earlier tariffs, Americans soon found themselves paying higher prices even for domestic items. The tariff, they realized, far from being a relief from taxes had become a tax in disguise.

And sometimes the amount of the individual tariffs just didn't make sense. William's stiff tariffs averaged 50% but some could be higher and others lower. For instance, the newspapers pointed out that there was a nearly 90% tariff on cloth used to make suits. But for imported whiskey it was only 20%. Maybe, the papers mused, people should stop wearing clothes and drink more whiskey.

But the talk on tariffs was soon eclipsed by the second major facet of William's tenure - and one that has remained of more popular interest. In 1898, America went to war.

And with Spain, for crying out loud!

There were two main reasons for the fracas that became known as the Spanish-American War. Since 1868 a number of Cubans, including the writer Jose Martí, had been actively fighting for Cuba's independence from Spain. Americans, of course, had long been taught that people who wanted to replace a government had the right and duty to do so. So a good chunk of Americans sided with the rebels. That Cuba would also be a great place for American fruit companies to come in and find cheap labor remains something for those of more suspicious minds to harbor.

But the most immediate cause of the war was that Spain was blamed for blowing up the US Battleship Maine. The ship had sailed in to Cuba to - quote - "protect American interests" - unquote - and had dropped anchor in Havana Harbor.

Then on February 15, 1898, an explosion ripped the ship in half. Accounts of the number of the crew and casualties are not entirely consistent, but there were at least 260 men killed out of a crew of about 360.

Naturally most Americans assumed it was an act of sabotage by the Spanish government. And sure enough, the inevitable congressional investigation found the explosion was from a mine planted under the ship⁹.

"Remember the Maine!" became the battle cry, although the second part of the slogan was usually omitted when teaching the young and impressionable. Congress promptly passed a joint resolution of war. This was not, we must point out, an explicit declaration of war but it was an ultimatum that unless Spain got out of Cuba and granted the country its independence, then America would go to war.

Spain was quite miffed and basically told the US they could meter el ultimátum in el culo. They then declared war on America.

Affronted in turn Congress issued their formal declaration of war on April 25. For good measure, they backdated it to April 21.

All wars start off with everyone saying the war will be over in three months. The good news was for this war that was literally true. The war was declared on April 25, 1898 and cessation of hostilities was accepted on August 13, 1898.

The bad news is the war cost over 3000 American lives. Most of the deaths - as in most of America's early wars - were not in battle (which were less than 400) but from disease. But that was a heavy price to pay to have cheap pineapples, and so William had to negotiate a peace treaty that would make it seem all worth it.

The formal peace treaty - the Treaty of Paris - was signed on December 10, 1898. Among the agreements was that America would recognize Cuban independence and would remove their troops.

There was though a slight catch.

America would pull its troops out after the new Cuban government would agree that America could intervene in the island if Cuba ran into troubles or adopted policies that would be inimical to America's interests. Oh, yes, also America must be permitted to keep their naval base at Guantánamo Bay in perpetuity. The Cubans, with little room to wiggle, agreed.

The treaty also more or less dissolved what remained of the Spanish Empire and gave it to America. So America acquired Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Phillipines. And during all this brouhaha, America annexed the Hawaiian Islands which up until then had officially been an independent republic.

You'd think that acquiring all this new territory would make Americans happy. Well, not necessarily, particularly if they were members of the Senate. You see, Americans had been griping for decades - actually more than a century about - (ptui) "imperialistic" nations like Britain, France, and yes, Spain who went around taking the natural resources of foreign countries, treating the indigenous people like dirt, and getting rich. And now suddenly with the acquisition of much of Spain's former empire, it seemed that Americans were also getting into the colonization game.

In fact, opposition in the Senate was so strong that for a while it looked like William wouldn't get his treaty. But he personally began to take - for him - a strong-arm position and actively lobbied the senators. As we said, William was probably personally the most congenial and affable man who had held the Presidency. He was also great at one-on-one negotiations and soon he had the two-thirds majority needed to pass the treaty - by one vote.

We see, then, why William is sometimes labeled the first modern president. His administration was the first where America really became an international power. And his personal efforts at negotiating the Treaty of Paris paved the way for the "strong" American President.

But that Americans had griped at countries like England and France for building empires wasn't lost on William's opponents when he came up for re-election. Once more his opponent was Bill Bryan who during the campaign delivered a stellar speech warning against America's entry into imperialism, a speech titled (what else?) "Imperialism".

In the 1900 election the popular vote wasn't a whole lot different than in 1896. And William actually had fewer electoral votes than before. But the biggest difference was William carried a lot more states: 28 compared to Bill's 17. So William and the Republicans had made real inroads into the western and rural regions.

Another change was there were new candidates for Vice President. Bill's VP choice had been Adlai Stevenson (granddad of the better known Adlai Stevenson II). William's choice was the young Governor of New York, Theodore Roosevelt¹⁰.

But finally we have to mention William's third and final legacy - and some say his most important. He was the first President to commit troops to foreign conflict without Congressional approval.

Ha? (To quote Shakespeare.) Didn't you say that Congress declared war on Spain?

Well, yes. But we're not talking about the Spanish-American War.

Instead, we're talking about the American-Philippine War. That was started up right after the Spanish-American War. And when in 1899 William ordered military action in the Phillipines, he didn't bother asking Congress.

But wait a minute! The Constitution says quite plainly that Congress has the power:

To declare war ...

Yes, that's correct. But notice that the Constitution doesn't define what a war is. And remember the United States now - quote "owned the Philippines" - unquote.

And what, as Flakey Foont asked Mr. Natural, does it all mean?

It means that the - quote - "American-Philippine War" - unquote - can be called - and traditionally was called - the American-Philippine Insurrection.

An insurrection is a resistance to a government by people living within an area controlled by that government. But if the insurrection was in one of the US states, there were legal limits to what the president could do.

State and local authorities had first dibs at putting down any revolt. The President couldn't send in Federal troops until the governor asked him to or if the President decided that the local authorities were unable or unwilling to take proper action¹¹.

The cause of the Philippine Insurrection is pretty clear. When America fought the Spanish-American War in Cuba, there were groups in the Phillipines that joined the American cause. Naturally they couldn't get to Cuba and so had to fight the Spanish on their home islands.

One of the rebel leaders was Emilio Aguinaldo who had gathered a bonafide army. But once the war was done, Emilio learned the Treaty of Paris dictated that the independence he and the other Filipino's had fought and died for was scotched. Instead, they would become citizens of a US territory.

Of course, said William, this was for the good of the Philippine people. He had appointed a commission to study how to handle Filipino aspirations and they concluded - surprise! surprise! - that the Filipinos were - "quote" - "not ready for independence" - unquote. So America would have to stay in charge for the foreseeable future.

As far as how long that was, William left the timeline open. There was an interview published in 1903 that was reported to be William's exact words on the matter. It was written by General James Rushling, and truth to tell there's some thought that the General was laying the standards to today's docudramas by making up quotes and conversations if it made a good story. But in any case the General wrote that William told him:

The truth is I didn't want the Philippines, and when they came to us, as a gift from the gods, I did not know what to do with them.

When the Spanish war broke out Dewey was at Hong Kong, and I ordered him to go to Manila and to capture or destroy the Spanish fleet, and he had to; because, if defeated, he had no place to refit on that side of the globe, and if the Dons were victorious they would likely cross the Pacific and ravage our Oregon and California coasts. And so he had to destroy the Spanish fleet, and did it!

But that was as far as I thought then. When next I realized that the Philippines had dropped into our laps I confess I did not know what to do with them. I sought counsel from all sides - Democrats as well as Republicans - but got little help. I thought first we would take only Manila; then Luzon; then other islands perhaps also. I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way - I don't know how it was, but it came.

1. That we could not give them back to Spain - that would be cowardly and dishonorable.
2. That we could not turn them over to France or Germany - our commercial rivals in the Orient - that would be bad business and discreditable.
3. That we could not leave them to themselves - they were unfit for self-government - and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's was.
4. That there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died.

And then I went to bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly, and the next morning I sent for the chief engineer of the War Department (our map-maker), and I told him to put the Philippines on the map of the United States [pointing to a large map on the wall of his office], and there they are, and there they will stay while I am President!¹²

Although we mentioned that there is doubt that the words are actually William's, the basic sentiments are probably his. Certainly from the actual events it's clear that the doctrine of Manifest Destiny - that the fledgling United States would eventually expand from the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific - had been modified to encompass the Pacific and ultimately to the rest of the world. If Manifest Destiny didn't mean owning the whole world, it certainly meant owning a good chunk of it. Of course, what the world didn't know wouldn't hurt them, and what better place to start global manifesting than with the Philippines?

«¡A diablos con eso!», said Emilio. Immediately after the Treaty of Paris was ratified, he declared war on the United States.

Now we clearly see the problem. War has usually been defined as an armed conflict between one country and another. But the Phillipines were now an American territory. So could America declare war on a part of itself?

Well, they didn't need to as long as the fighting was an insurrection. And with the insurrection being outside of any actual US state, there was no state or local government to have first crack at the rebels.

Now in the Phillipines there were governors, of course, but these were territorial governors selected by the President. They were also military governors - that is generals in the army who were subject to the command of the President. The first civilian governor, William Howard Taft, was also a presidential appointee.

But in the case of Emilio, William said, it didn't matter. Emilio was not a legitimate belligerent¹³. He was an "outlaw bandit". Ergo, any fighting he did was not that of a legitimate army, but from a criminal. There was no war. And no war; no Congressional Approval needed, thank you.

However, conventional tactics were not much help in the jungles of Asia, particularly since by late 1899 Emilio had turned to guerilla warfare¹⁴. This put the Americans at a disadvantage and things dragged on until even William thought about pulling the troops out. But like most presidents he felt to do so would mean he would be seen as caving in. Clearly a get-tough policy was needed.

And get-tough it was. One American commander issued an order to take no prisoners and any Filipino male over ten years old was considered a "rebel" and "traitor" - and was to be killed. Filipino prisoners were herded into detention areas (which critics of William call "concentration camps") and tortured by waterboarding and other enhanced techniques. It wasn't lost on a lot of people that these actions were a lot like the atrocities that Americans had accused Spain of in the late war.

In the end, though, the American army was better equipped than Emilio's and had a potentially unlimited source of supplies and manpower. So in 1901 Emilio finally gave up and accepted American authority¹⁵ and in 1902 the last Filipino leader, Miguel Malvar, surrendered. But the cost was steep, at least 4000 American lives and over 15,000 Filipino combatants. Filipino civilian deaths are uncertain but half a million is probably an accurate estimate.

After almost a year into his second term, William traveled to the Pan-American Exhibit - essentially the World's Fair - in Buffalo, New York. On September 6, 1901, he was in a receiving line in the Temple of Music where people could come by and shake his hand. He had been there for a little more than five minutes when Leon Czolgosz walked up. He had a pistol in his right hand but had covered it with a handkerchief.

Even in those days where presidential security was loose compared to today, the Secret Service made sure everyone who was near the President's path kept their hands in plain sight. But the day was hot, and in those pre-airconditioned days the agents had permitted people to keep their handkerchiefs.

According to witnesses, Leon had extended his left hand. William evidently thinking the handkerchief was a bandage, reached out only to have his hand knocked aside. Leon then fired.

The bullet struck a button on William's coat and ricocheted off. But Leon immediately fired again and the bullet penetrated William's abdomen. As William slumped down, he told his guards, "Be easy with him, boys."

William was immediately rushed to the hospital. The doctors, though, couldn't locate the bullet and so the surgery was more extensive than would have been needed if X-rays were possible. But for a while it actually looked like William might recover. Then gangrene set in and eight days later, September 14, William died. And as the song says:

Roosevelt in the White House, he's doing his best.
McKinley in the graveyard, he's taking his rest.
He's gone a long,
Long time.

References

President McKinley: Architect of the American Century, Robert W. Merry, Simon and Schuster, 2017.

"'Wobbling Willie': The Euphonious Name Some Repubs. Apply to the Chief - He Must be a 'Man or a Mouse' on Finance as Well as the Civil Service Rules", [Olympia] Washington [Territory] Standard, December 31, 1897, Chronicling America, Library of Congress.

"Mr. McKinley as President", Henry Macfarland, The Atlantic, March, 1901.

"Taking the Measure of Mr. McKinley", Jeff Nilsson and John Wise, The Saturday Evening Post, September 11, 2010

Presidential Anecdotes,Paul Boller, Oxford University Press, 1981.

Presidential Campaigns,Paul Boller, Oxford University Press, 1984.

Clarence Darrow for the Defense, Irving Stone, Doubleday (1941, Original Edition; Reprint, Signet, 1971). Beware of an abridged version from the mid-1960's which edits out some sentences which really should be kept in.

"Oklahoma Constitution", Danny Adkison, The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, Oklahoma Historical Society.

"The Constitution of the State of Oklahoma", Warden Printing Company, [N. D.]

"Mark Hanna and the 1896 Election", The United States Senate.

"Mr. McKinley Presents a Counter Attraction to His "All Wool" Suit of Clothing", William Rogers, Harpers Weekly, 1888, Prints and Photographs, Library of Congress.

"You Think You Are Related to President William McKinley", McKinley Presidential Library & Stark County Archives.

"How President William McKinley's Assassination Led to the Modern Secret Service", Kat Eschner, Smithsonian, September 14, 2017.

"Assassination of President McKinley", Richard Cavendish, History Today, September 2001.

"Leon Czolgosz - American Assassin", Amy Tikkanen, Encyclopedia Britannica.

See Article History

"The Assassination of William McKinley and the Development of Presidential Security", Ohio History, June 26, 2017.

"Interview with President William McKinley," James Rusling, The Christian Advocate, January 22, 1903.

"Destruction of the Maine (1898)", Louis Fisher, Library of Congress, August 4, 2009.