Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1896-05-06
WHY HIS DEBTS WERE PAID.

are gambling for White House.
".
WHY HIS DEBTS WERE PAID.
They decided, too, to gain ali OF the
political eclat from the transaction they
could for the betterment OF the Mclkln-
ley boom. Hanna took charge with his
usual red-faced forwardness.
He had Mckinley make over to Hanna
Herrick, Kohlsaat and Day, as trustees,
ali of his own and his wire's property.
1t Was a clean sweep, and the Worl1 was
to be widely and feelingly informed Of
the martyrlike manner IN which Nc
Kinley stripped himself for his credit
orS
Now, as a matter of fact, this was al
farce, and the merest Stage play in
politics, 1t was meant to make an i'm
preston. Before ever Mckinley gave
UP q splinter to this quartet of trustees
he knew, and they knew-for it had al
ready been decided-that every dollar
was to come back TO him.
Mark Hanna, with thai Indifference ID
truth, which is his primal character
istic, will deny this; it is none the less
true, and every one of the five, from
Hanna to Mckinley knows it is true.
When Mckinley made over his prop
erty and his wife's Ito pay his credit
ors" he knew twas fiction. The plan
was then afoot to pass the platter,
squeeze the manufacturers who mad
been and were to be protected" and pay
the Mckinley bankruptcy by subscrip-
ton.
And it was done Mckinley gave up
his property; the syndicate received it;
the papers OF Northern Ohio blubbe:ed
over the fact.
Then the syndicate gave forth the in
formation that out of the depths of
nations gratitude to great statesman
had come a thousand still small voices
profferlng money to pay McKinley's
debts. And, not to check noble inn
pulse, the Offers had been accepted,
these spontaneous aims and charities
rounded up and the debts all paid. 1t
was also told in pretty, fearful, touch
ing way, how McKinley's little fortune,
had been returned to him intact.
Mckinley was now no worse off in
goods than when the Walker failure fell,
and if anything, the affair had been so
staged and played through by the coarse
yet skillful Hanna that syndicate
chances were thereby much enhanced,
and the Mckinley boom for SO was bet
ter off than ever.
There is the story of the Mckinley
bankruptcy and the work of the syndi-
cate in paying him out OF chancery.
1t all shows Mckinley posing as very
unfortunate, very honest and very in
nocsnt; while the syndicate rushes up
on the stage in a thunder-gust of noble
generosity to rescue a great statesman
too foolish TO do private business,
but wise enough to transact a nations
from his debts.
Just how generous" Hanna and these
other Ohio philanthropists OF politics
were, and how much moved by a pub
lie impulse and not a streak of private
hope therein, might be guessed at when
one recalls that right at the time they
were ''rescuing" Mckinley, another
man, the man who framed and passed,
as member OF Congress, the general
Homestead law, under which millions
of poor folk have found homes, himself
died a neglected vagrant among vag-
rants in the Columbus Ohio Poverty
barn.
The Hanna syndicate didn't go to his
rescue. Il didn't even bury him, and his
remains went either to the potters' field
or the diessecting table. He, poor devil,
author of the HOMESTEAD law, if you will
had no White House boom to be tho
subject of syndication, and so in his
case no Hanna errick- Kohlsaat-Day
generosity bloomed like a rose.
There is the story, and the world may
decide on it as it will. Should fault be
found for its telling the Pathfinder
should reflect that 1t is Mckinleys
story, and not mine.
And it all shows that he should never
be a President. A nature so crafty and
so careless or right that it would sign
$11S,000 worth of paper on a $10.GG0
foundation; that once caught in the coils
of discovery and disaster it would
this nature-he found abject and unfine
enough TO accept such aims, so given
and from such source, is not of the
right fibre for Chief Magistrate.
And the end of it all is as the end of
it all will be. Put Mckinley in the
White House and this syndicate will
own him and thrive by him; root and
stalk and standing grass. He is theirs
now, and he lived by them, privately as
well as publicly. Elect him to the
White House and from March n2xt
year he will still be theirs, and they will
live by him, privetely as we'll as pub
licly. And they-this syndicate-wili
squeeze the country dry like a lemon.
ALFRED HENRY LEWIS.