page_title: William McKinley 1896 presidential campaign
section_title: Preparing for a run
hierarchical_section_title: William McKinley 1896 presidential campaign / Gaining the nomination / Preparing for a run
caption_attribution_description: English: Louis Dalrymple cartoon from Puck magazine: President Grover Cleveland (to right) has blazed the path by firmly adhering to the gold standard, which Puck considers "sound money": Cleveland has paused in his work to watch the "Sound Money Parade" come through. Mark Hanna is the drum major, Republican presidential candidate William McKinley (dressed as Napoleon, who he was said to resemble) and vice presidential candidate Garret Hobart are in the first row behind him, former president Benjamin Harrison (with brown cane) is also in the front row, Henry Cabot Lodge, John Sherman, Thomas Reed, and other Republican notables march behind. Note that McKinley is blind and following Hanna by holding on to his coattails; he is also gripping Hobart's arm.
context_page_description: In 1896, William McKinley was elected President of the United States. McKinley, a Republican and former Governor of Ohio, defeated the joint Democratic and Populist nominee, William Jennings Bryan, as well as minor-party candidates. McKinley's decisive victory in what is sometimes seen as a realigning election ended a period of close presidential contests, and ushered in an era of dominance for the Republican Party.
  McKinley was born in 1843 in Niles, Ohio. After service as an Army officer in the Civil War, he became a lawyer and settled in Canton, Ohio. In 1876 he was elected to Congress, and he remained there most of the time until 1890, when he was defeated for re-election in a gerrymandered district. By this time he was considered a likely presidential candidate, especially after being elected governor in 1891 and 1893. McKinley had incautiously co-signed the loans of a friend, and demands for repayment were made on him when his friend went bankrupt in the Panic of 1893. Personal insolvency would have removed McKinley as a factor in the 1896 campaign, but he was rescued from this by businessmen who supported him, led by his friend and political manager, Mark Hanna.
context_section_description: Harrison was defeated in the November 1892 election by former president Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, who returned to the White House in March 1893. President Harrison left office proclaiming the nation's prosperity, but in May, amid economic uncertainty that caused many people to convert assets into gold, the stock market crashed, and many firms went bankrupt. The depression that ensued became known as the Panic of 1893. Among those who became insolvent in 1893 was a McKinley friend, Robert Walker. McKinley had co-signed promissory notes for Walker, and thought the total to be $17,000. Walker had deceived McKinley, telling the governor that fresh loans were renewals of old ones, and the total indebtedness, for which McKinley had made himself liable, was over $130,000. That sum was beyond McKinley's means, and he planned to resign and earn the money as a lawyer. He was rescued by Hanna and other wealthy supporters, who raised the money to pay the loans. According to McKinley biographer Kevin Phillips, the governor's backers "paid off the cosigned notes so that McKinley—by now, the probable next president—did not need to go back to practicing law".
  The public sympathized with McKinley for his financial trouble, and he was easily re-elected as governor in late 1893. At that time, the United States, for all practical purposes, was on the gold standard. Many Democrats, and some Republicans, felt that the gold standard limited economic growth, and supported bimetallism, making silver legal tender, as it had been until the passage of the Coinage Act of 1873. Doing so would likely be inflationary, permitting holders of silver to deposit bullion at the mints, and receive payment for about twice the silver's 1896 market value. Many farmers, faced with the long decline in agricultural prices that persisted through the first half of the 1890s, felt that bimetallism would expand the money supply and make it easier to pay their debts. Cleveland was a firm supporter of the gold standard, and believed the massive amounts of silver-backed currency issued pursuant to the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890 had helped crash the economy. In 1893 he forced through the act's repeal, outraging western Democrats such as Nebraska Congressman William Jennings Bryan. The Democratic Congress in 1894 passed the Wilson–Gorman Tariff, significantly lowering many rates from the McKinley Tariff of 1890. The economy did not improve in 1894, and other Cleveland actions, such as federal intervention to halt the Pullman strike, further split his party,
  The 1894 election campaign saw the Democrats divided, and the electorate further split by the new People's Party (or Populists), which had emerged from the agricultural discontent. There were more demands for McKinley to speak than he could possibly fulfill. Campaigning throughout the eastern half of the country on behalf of Republican candidates, and venturing even to New Orleans in the Democratic Solid South, McKinley spoke to large, enthusiastic crowds as often as 23 times in a day. According to his biographer Margaret Leech, "McKinley's fervor was irresistible to his audiences. He was better than a spellbinder. He was a vote-getter. The whirlwind campaign of the Governor of Ohio was a sensation of the autumn." The 1894 elections saw the Democrats suffer the greatest losses by a majority party in congressional history, as the Republicans again took control of both houses.
caption: "Pioneer Cleveland":  Puck magazine cartoon shows the Republicans following the path of the gold standard which President Grover Cleveland (right) has blazed. McKinley, wearing a large black hat, walks behind Hanna (in red).
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