The herald., 1896-05-17
M'k|NLEYS HOMELY PLACE
UnrlffIed Life Of the Foremost
q. o. P. Candidate
SIMPLICITY HIS KEYNOTE
He Leaves His Boom TO Hanna, His
Fat Fryer
SLAVES Himself. Blacks His Own Boots. Hoes
In the Garden and Smokes n 40.
SIMPLICITY HIS KEYNOTE
SLAVES Himself, Blacks His Own Boots. Hoes
In the Garden and Smokes 800
Cent Pipe
Correspondence to The Herald.

Correspondence to The Herald.
CANTON, Ohio, May 11.-Major Will
lam Mckinley shakes hands at least one
hundred times a day. He says his right
arm Is more muscular than 1t used to be.
Mark Hanna, che happy, the confident,
the irresistible, the interchangeable. the
greatest all-rOund hustler on the green
earth today, says that before the major
is two months older he will be shaking
hands at the rate of 5000 shakes per day.
between now and November next the
gladstone Mark estimates that the maj
or will have shaken the hands of at least
10000 people, and every one of them
voter; babies and children and ladies
not counting.
This is one way of looking at the great
free-for-all G. o. p. nomination handi-
cap.with the candidates rounding the
curve into the home stretch, and the
Ohio major leading, with slathers OF
daylight between him and the next man.
But this story has nothing to do directly
with politics. 1t will simply tell what
the foremost candidate of the Repub-
lican party does in day.
And there are several things to make
such a story interesting. In the first
place, the man who stands good chance
of molding the destinies of 10000, 900 of
people for four years lives in a frame
house for which he pays $40 per moth
rent. He keeps two servants. One of
them cooks and washes and does other
work, and the other sweeps the house,
answers the door bell and waits on Mrs
Mckinley, who is an invalid.
The major blacks his own shoes and
shaves himself every morning at
o'clock. His wife loves flowers, and In
the rustle-bustle of getting grip on the
nomination the major finds time every
morning to put on linen buster and an
old straw hat and go out in the yard and
attend to the flowers. Even the most
pretentious people could not dignity the
Mckinley garden by the high sounding
title of grounds. The yard has front
age of rs feet and depth of $50 feet The
house, with it's porches is about forty
feet wide, and that doesn't leave much
room on either side.
A quarter of a century ago. when Mr..
and Mrs. Mckinley We're married, they
came to live in this house. Several times
they left it to go to Washington o.:
Ohio's capital. but they always came
back to this two-story frame house
Every one Of it's twelve rooms is en-
deared to Mrs. Mckinley. Here her two
children were born, and when they died
the mother was left shattered in health.
Some people have wondered at the SOM
Der aspect of Mckinley. The tender
hearted man rendered childless. the low
Ing husband who has seen his girl wife
fade away into an invalid woman, tell
their own story.
Mckinley does not seem nowadays to
be the man rolling on the wave of polit-
1cal excitement. He is always calm and
deliberate. He seems never to be in
haste. He does nothing in hurry. He
walks slowly, speaks softly, and has the
eternal look of a man who has nothing
TO do. IT is simply that he has developed
TO an abnormal degree the capacity OF
getting through an immense amount Of
work without making any fuss about 1t.
He is methodical almost to the point OF
aggravation. AMI is so deliberate that it
must make the turbulent soul of Mark
Hanna heave with indignation.
The major is up every morning at 6
o'clock and the first act of the day is
TO visit Mrs. McKinley's room to see how
she spent the night. Very often thew
breakfast together in her room when she
Is too exhausted to undergo the trial of
dressing and being wheeled to the dining
room. The majors mail has grown to
terrible proportions within the past few
weeks. Much Of It comes to the house
and more of It Is delivered at his office.
At the early morning meal Mrs McKin-
ley opens some Of the letters and reads
them. She is vastly interested in the
work that is now going on and has a
ffrst-class knowledge Of politics. She
knows all of the mai or's hopes and fears.
and when the news comes of some new