Part 24 (1/2)
McKinley's campaign for the nomination and controlled it absolutely and, to use the common expression, he ”ran every other candidate off the track.”
He came into Illinois and carried the State easily. He was not sparing in the use of money, but believed in using it legitimately in accomplis.h.i.+ng results.
It must have been a great satisfaction to him when the St. Louis Convention nominated his candidate, William McKinley, of Ohio, on the first ballot by a vote of 661 as against 84 votes for Thomas B. Reed, of Maine, the next highest candidate. He had it all organized so perfectly that the St. Louis convention was perfunctory so far as Mr. McKinley's nomination was concerned. The Convention recognized that it was Mr. Hanna had achieved this great triumph; and after Senator Lodge, Governor Hastings, and Senators Platt and Depew had moved that the nomination of Mr. McKinley be made unanimous, a general call was made for Mr. Hanna. He finally yielded in a very brief address:
”Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention:--I am glad there was one member of this Convention who has had the intelligence at this late hour to ascertain how this nomination was made--by the people. What feeble effort I may have contributed to the result, I am here to lay the fruits of it at the feet of my party and upon the altar of my country. I am now ready to take my position in the ranks alongside of my friend, General Henderson, and all good Republicans from every State, and do the duty of a soldier until next November.”
Naturally, Mr. Hanna was made chairman of the Republican National Committee, and as such conducted Mr. McKinley's campaign for election just as he had conducted the preliminary campaign for the nomination.
He there showed the shrewdest tact and ability in its management, and many people believe that he elected McKinley very largely by his own efforts.
I do not know whether Mr. Hanna was very ambitious to enter the Senate or not, but I do believe that Mr. McKinley saw that he would be probably the most useful Senator to his Administration; and he contrived to make a vacancy in the Senators.h.i.+p from Ohio by inducing John Sherman to accept the position of Secretary of State in his Cabinet, thereby making a place for Mr. Hanna in the Senate.
Senator Sherman resigned to enter the State Department; and on March 5, 1897, Mr. Hanna was appointed by Governor Bushnell to fill the vacancy.
From the very first Mr. Hanna took rank as one of the foremost leaders of the Senate. Of course, he had everything in his favor.
He had nominated and elected McKinley; he had been Chairman of the Republican National Committee, and it was known that he stood closer to the President than any other man in public life.
But notwithstanding this, he had the real ability naturally to a.s.sume his place as a leader. He a.s.sumed a prominent place more rapidly than any Senator whom I have ever known. He took hold of legislation with a degree of skill and confidence that was remarkable, and carried his measures thorough apparently by his own individual efforts and energy. He changed the whole att.i.tude of the Senate concerning the route for an interoceanic ca.n.a.l. We all generally favored the Nicaraguan route. Senator Hanna became convinced that the Panama route was best, and he soon carried everything before him to the end that the Panama route was selected.
During the first McKinley campaign, Mark Hanna was probably the most caricatured man in public life. He was made an issue in the campaign and was usually pictured as being covered with money-bags and dollars. But it is very strange how public sentiment changed concerning him. Before the first McKinley Administration was over, Mark Hanna enjoyed quite a degree of popularity; but it was not until he entered the campaign of 1900 that he really became one of the popular figures in American politics.
Some one, I do not know who, induced him to go among the people and show himself, and try to make some speeches. His first few efforts were so successful that it was determined he should make a speech-making tour. Senator Frye, of Maine, one of the oldest and most experienced and finest orators in the country, accompanied him on his tour. Senator Frye told me that he prevailed upon Senator Hanna to make short campaign speeches first. He requested him to try a fifteen-minute speech, then extend them to thirty minutes. Before their tour was ended, he was making just as long and just as good a speech as any old experienced campaigner. During this campaign, there were more calls on the Republican National Committee for Senator Hanna than there were for any other campaign speaker. Everywhere he went he made friends, not only for President McKinley, the nominee of the party, but for himself as well. Mark Hanna became one of the most popular leaders in the Republican party, and I have never for a moment doubted that he could have been the nominee of the party for the Presidency in 1904, had he consented to accept it. He told me in a private conversation had been gratified when he had seen his great personal friend, Mr.
McKinley, twice elected President of the United States, and now that he had pa.s.sed away he had no particular ambition on his own account.
Mr. McKinley promptly proceeded to call a special session of Congress, which convened March 15, 1897, and in which Mr. Reed was elected Speaker of the House. This session was called for the purpose of enacting a law for the raising of sufficient revenue to carry on the Government; and on March 31 the Dingley Bill pa.s.sed the House. The bill was debated in the Senate for several weeks, and after eight hundred and seventy-two amendments were incorporated, it pa.s.sed the Senate July 7, 1897. The conference report was agreed to, and the act was approved July 24, 1897. The country was in such condition then that we heard no complaint concerning the high protective tariff. The Republicans were united in advocating such a protective tariff as would enable the mills and factories to open, thereby affording employment and restoring prosperity.
From the election of President McKinley and the enactment of the Dingley Law I do not hesitate to say that we can date the greatest era of prosperity, and the greatest material advancement, of any period of like duration in our history.
Toward the close of the Cleveland Administration and all during the first part of the McKinley Administration, conditions were leading up inevitably to the Spanish-American War. The enthusiasm of some Senators, especially Senator Proctor, of Vermont, and my own colleague, Senator Mason, of Illinois, became so intense that war was brought on before the country was really prepared for it.
Mr. McKinley held back. He knew the horrors of war and, if he could avoid it, did not desire to see his country engage in hostilities with any other country. He acted with great discretion, holding things steadily until some degree of preparation was made; and I have no doubt at all that the war would have been averted had not the _Maine_ been destroyed in Havana harbor. The country forced us into it after that appalling catastrophe.
The entire Nation stood behind the President, and so did Congress.
One of the most dignified and impressive scenes I ever witnessed since I became a member of the Senate was the pa.s.sage of the bill appropriating fifty million dollars to be expended under the direction of the President, in order to carry on the war. The Committee on Appropriations, of which I had long been a member, directed Senator Hale to report the bill. It was agreed in committee that we should endeavor to secure its pa.s.sage without a single speech for or against it. Some of the Senators who seemed disposed to talk, were prevailed upon to desist, and it was pa.s.sed without any speeches. The ayes and nays were called, and amid the most solemn silence the bill was pa.s.sed. The galleries were crowded; a great many members of the House were on the floor, and it reminded me of the days when the great Reconstruction legislation was being enacted, in the sixties. It was a demonstration to the country and the world of our confidence in the President, and the determination on the part of Congress to do what was necessary to uphold the dignity and honor of the United States. The vote for the bill in the Senate was unanimous.
The war came on immediately afterwards. The history of it is yet too fresh in the minds of the people to need repet.i.tion here. It was soon over, and with its conclusion came new and greater responsibilities. Whether it was wise for the United States to a.s.sume these new responsibilities, I am not prepared to say. Time alone can determine that.
I have always had great sympathy for General Russell A. Alger, of Michigan, who was in President McKinley's Cabinet as Secretary of War. It was not his fault that conditions in the War Department were as they existed in 1897, when he a.s.sumed office. We must remember that the country had enjoyed a continuous period of peace from 1865 to 1898. We were unprepared for war, and in the scramble and haste the Department of War was not administered satisfactorily, the whole blame being laid upon General Alger. It had been the policy of the Democratic party in Congress to oppose liberal appropriations for the maintenance of the War Department and the Army. Many Republicans thought that the best means of limiting appropriations was in cutting down the estimates for the War Department. They seemed to think that we would never again engage in a foreign war.
General Alger was a thoroughly honest man, of whose integrity I never had any doubt. He was made the scapegoat, and President McKinley practically was forced by public sentiment to demand his resignation. Personally, I have always believed the President should have stood by General Alger. I was much gratified when his own people in Michigan showed their confidence in him, very soon after he was forced out of the McKinley Cabinet, by electing him to a seat in the United States Senate made vacant by the death of the late Senator McMillan.
During his Administration, President McKinley did me quite an honor by appointing me chairman of a commission to visit the Hawaiian Island, investigate conditions there, and report a form of government for those islands. He appointed with me my colleague, Senator Morgan of Alabama, and my friend the Hon. R. R. Hitt, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. In all my public life this was the second executive appointment that I ever received, the first being from President Lincoln during the Civil War, to investigate commissary and quartermasters' accounts, to which I have already referred.
It had been the well-known policy of the United States for many years that in no event could the ent.i.ty of Hawaiian statehood cease by the pa.s.sage of the islands under the domination or influence of another power than the United States. Their annexation came about as the natural result of the strengthening of the ties that bound us to those islands for many years. The people had overthrown the monarchy and set up a republic. It seemed certain that the republic could not long exist, and they appealed to the United States for annexation. The treaty of annexation was negotiated and then ratified by Hawaii, but it was withdrawn by President Cleveland before the Senate acted upon it; finally, the islands were annexed by the pa.s.sage of an act of Congress during the McKinley Administration.
It was under these circ.u.mstances that Senator Morgan, Mr. Hitt, and I visited the islands. The appointment came about in this way.
I had been urging the President to appoint Mr. Rheuna Lawrence, of Springfield, Illinois, as one of the commissioners. The Hon. James A. Connolly, then representing the Springfield district in Congress, had also been very active in trying to secure Lawrence's appointment.
He came to me in the Senate one day and told me that there was no chance of Lawrence being appointed and that the President had determined to appoint me. I told Connolly I did not see how I could accept an appointment, under the circ.u.mstances, and that Lawrence might misunderstand it. Connolly said he thought I must take the place. The President himself afterwards talked with me about it. I hesitated. He urged me, insisting that I could not very well afford to decline. Finally I said that if he insisted, I would accept. He nominated us to the Senate for confirmation.
This precipitated considerable debate in the Senate, for, by the member of the Committee on the Judiciary, the appointment of Senators and members on such a commission was regarded as unconst.i.tutional; but the committee determined to take no action on the nominations at all, so we were neither confirmed nor rejected. President McKinley urged us to go ahead, however, visit the islands, and make our report, which we did. This was the beginning of expansion, or Imperialism, in the campaign of 1900.
One writer, in speaking of the acquisition of these islands, said:
”One of the brightest episodes in American history was the acquisition of the Hawaiian Islands, and Senator Cullom's name is prominently a.s.sociated with that act. He read aright our history as a nation of expansionists. He was not afraid to permit the great republic to become greater. He deemed it wise that to the lines of our influence on land should be added a national influence on the seas.