St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1900-05-09
McKinley's Career.

Mr.. McKinley's career has been one of
marvellous success, writes Henry Loomis
Nelson in the current Golfers Weekly.
He is typical American OF the Middle
West, and he comes OF that typical Amer
lean family which is quite likely in some
one generation to produce one distin-
gulshed man. Twelve years ago, when
he was re elected to the House of Repre-
sentatives Tor the seventh time, very few
people dreamed that he would ever be
president. He was leader in the House
on the tariff issue. and because he had a
certain force in speech; but was not seri-
ously considered as a candidate for the
speakership, which went to Thomas B.
Reed. His previous career has been mod
est, as he was. He had enlisted in the
army, in the Twenty-third regiment of
his native State of Ohio, in June, 1861,
and had served through the war with
moderate distinction, reaching the grade
of captain and the brevet grade Of major,
the brevet being given to him for gallan-
try in battle. Much Of his service was
on staff duty. When he was mustered
out, on July 26 1865, he was in his
twenty-third year, so that he was eigh-
teen when he enlisted. Before entering
the army he had been a student at
Allegheny College in MeadvilIe, Pa. He
now applied himself to the study OF law,
and settled at Canton, where he lives,
and in 1867 he was admitted to the bar.
Two years afterward he was chosen
prosecuting attorney OF Stark county,
and in 1876, was elected to Congress,
serving for fourteen years. In the last
year OF this service, as chairman of the
committee of ways and means, he was
the author of the tariff law which bore
his name. In the election that followed
in that year he lost his seat in the House.
Some say that he was defeated because
the democrats had gerrymandered his
district Others because of the unpopular
ity of his tariff law. However this may
be, his tariff law made him governor of
Ohio for two terms and President of the
United States. From 1894 to 1896, he
was out of office, but he received 1872
votes Tor the nomination for president in
1892, and had been chairman OF the con-
vention. In 1884 and 1888, he had re-
ported the national platforms to the
conventions OF those years. He was, in
brief, the spokesman of the policy of pro-
lection. 1t was for this reason that he
had been intrusted with the duty Of
framing its policy at two national con-
ventions, and of presenting it's bill in
1890. 1t he could have been more useful
to the cause of protection in the speaker
ship than as chairman of the ways and
means committee, he, and not Mr.. Reed,
would have been elected to that Office.
He was the favorite Of the extreme pro-
tectionists in the convention of 1892, re.
ceiving AZ of Pennsylvanias Ga votes.
Finally, he was nominated in 1896. be-
cause the plan had been diligently and
ably laid and carried out by his friends.
At that time he stood for protection and
nothing else. Even then, notwithstand-
ing all the preparation, and because he
had been an advocate of silver and of the
purchasing act which had been repealed
through Cleveland's efforts, he might
possibly have been defeated in the con-
vention by an avowed gold standard
candidate; but there was no one to take
that attitude, and Mckinley had 200
more votes than majority.