own party. Whenever a fight is made, it tends to become bitter and threatens a dangerous schism within the ranks of the Faithful.

Strong, however, as was the position of the President, it presented certain weaknesses, which the friends of an alternative candidate could scarcely ignore. Mr. Harrison was personally unpopular. He had made many enemies in the party, who would have been glad to see him defeated. On the surface his nomination was not by any means assured. A majority of the delegates were not pledged to vote for him. The disaffected elements in the party might be able to hold up the nomination and concentrate upon some other candidate. Among the disaffected Republicans was Mr. Hanna. He had not been well treated by Mr. Harrison and would in any event have been opposed to the President's renomination. In September, 1891, an attempt had been made to disarm his opposition. His friend, Charles Foster, who was Secretary of the Treasury, prevailed upon the President to offer to Mr. Hanna the office of Treasurer of the National Committee. It was a position which he was well qualified to fill, and which under ordinary circumstances he would have been likely to accept. But its acceptance would have tied him to the administration, and he declined. He wished to remain free to take any advantage of President Harrison's lack of strength which the situation, as it developed, permitted.

Under the circumstances the plan was adopted of keeping the McKinley candidacy above the surface but in the background. No attempt was made to secure the election of delegates pledged to McKinley. Mr. McKinley himself assumed the correct attitude of being overtly favorable to Harrison's renomination. But preparations were made to bring McKinley forward, in case Mr. Harrison's renomination proved to be difficult. Mr. Hanna's hope was that enough delegates would be kept away from the President by a revival of the Blaine candidacy to tie up the nomination and permit the introduction of McKinley into the breach. Mr. Hanna was not a delegate to the Convention, but he went to Minneapolis and opened an unofficial headquarters for McKinley at the West House. For some days he tried, not without prospects of success, to

arrange combinations, which under certain possible contingencies might result in McKinley's favor.

It was, however, a useless effort. McKinley never had a chance, and he did well not to abandon his overt support of the President and his overt discouragement of his own followers. Mr. Harrison could not be beaten. Twelve of his friends, subsequently named the "Twelve Apostles," conceived the idea of collecting all the Harrison disciples together as a sort of demonstration in force, which would constrain the weaker brethren. The meeting was held in Market Hall and was attended by a sufficient number of delegates to assure the nomination. President Harrison received 535 votes on the first ballot and his selection was made unanimous. The McKinley headquarters at the West House had been closed some days before, although this fact did not prevent Mr. Hanna from continuing to work on behalf of his friend. As the event proved, it was fortunate that the President was strong enough to obtain a renomination. Probably no Republican candidate could have been elected in 1892, while at the same time the President's defeat resulted in making McKinley even more possible for 1896. He was generally admitted to be the most available man for the next nomination. No less than 182 delegates had voted for him as an unauthorized candidate, which was as many as had voted for Blaine. He had been hailed in the Convention as the candidate for '96. The symptoms could scarcely be more favorable.

The Convention was no sooner over than steps were taken in the direction of Governor McKinley's nomination in 1896. On this point the testimony of ex-Senator Charles Dick is explicit. He had been a delegate to the Minneapolis Convention; and (according to his account) Mr. Hanna and others of the Republican leaders in Ohio had talked with him about accepting the chairmanship of the State Committee in case McKinley were nominated. About two weeks later the State Committee met in Columbus, and selected Mr. Dick as chairman. As soon as he was notified, he started for Columbus to decline the honor. He had agreed to accept it only in case some Ohio man were nominated. There he had an interview with Governor McKinley, who urged him to accept and insisted

that before reaching any negative decision he have an interview with Mr. Hanna. The result was that he allowed himself to be persuaded. They both of them urged the necessity of having a trustworthy McKinley man at the head of the State Committee, so that every local campaign between 1892 and 1896 could be conducted with a view to the nomination of the Governor in 1896.

No opportunity was lost to keep the candidate before the public. During the campaign of 1892 special efforts were made to make Mr. McKinley conspicuous on the stump. An unusually prolonged trip was arranged by Thomas H. Carter, chairman of the Republican National Committee, after consultation with Mr. Hanna. The Governor's route stretched as far west as Iowa and Minnesota, and as far east as Maine, and it included all the important intervening states. Wherever he went he made a favorable impression. He was not like William J. Bryan a great popular orator, but he was a persuasive and effective speaker, who could give dignity and sincerity to the commonplaces of partisan controversy. Above all, his amiability and his winning personal qualities never failed to make for him friends and well-wishers.

The defeat of Benjamin Harrison and the election of Grover Cleveland had, of course, a profound although at first a doubtful, effect upon Mr. McKinley's general standing as a presidential candidate. The campaign on his behalf would be either very much strengthened or very much weakened,— according to the success or failure of the new President's administration. Mr. Cleveland had been elected on the tariff issue. The high protectionist legislation passed in 1890 continued to be so unpopular that not only did he receive a larger majority in the electoral college than he had in 1884, but his party secured the control of both Houses of Congress. For the first time since the Civil War the Democrats were in a position to fulfil their preëlection promises. If they could pass a measure of tariff reform, which would receive the approval of the country, Mr. McKinley's chief political stock-in-trade would be very much damaged. On the other hand the failure of tariff reform as a practical economic and political policy would make him the logical candidate of his own party.

The situation, however, as it developed, brought with it an additional complication, which was to be as embarrassing to Mr. McKinley in 1896 as it was to President Cleveland in 1893. When the new administration assumed office in the March of that year, not only was the economic prosperity of the country compromised, but the security of its whole credit system had been gravely threatened. The country had enjoyed thirteen or fourteen years of practically uninterrupted agricultural and industrial expansion. The new states between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains had been settled with unusual rapidity, and with an over-confident assurance that the prairie lands of the western part of Kansas and Nebraska would be as available for immediately profitable cultivation as had the better watered lands farther east. The farmers had gone heavily into debt for the sake of improving their homesteads, and were depending on a steady increase in ground value, remunerative prices for grain, and a persistently abundant supply of loanable capital in order to meet their obligations.

None of these necessities was forthcoming. The settlement of this particular region had been closely associated with an unprecedented amount of railway construction. The new mileage was built as much for the future as for the present. It had called for an enormous amount of capital, upon which sufficient returns could not be immediately earned. It stimulated the settlement of new farms to such an extent that for many years the supply of agricultural commodities tended to exceed the world's demand. This whole section of the country needed time to grow up to its improvements. Too much money had been borrowed on the strength of expectations, the realization of which would have to be postponed much longer than the borrowers anticipated.

Unfortunately, however, just at this juncture the security of the whole American financial system was threatened by the effects of the liberal purchase and coinage of silver by the government a policy which had been favored by the West under the erroneous idea that the more money issued by the government per capita the more each farmer would have in his pocket. This policy eventually caused that very contraction of credit which

in

was needed in order to compromise still more seriously the situation of the western borrowers. It had become doubtful whether the government could maintain gold payments the face of the persistent exportation of gold, and the steady drain on the gold reserve. At the same time the Treasury was embarrassed by a deficit resulting from a combination of industrial depression and the Republican tariff and appropriation acts of 1890.

These different causes of uncertainty and depression began to be felt in full during the early months of President Cleveland's second term. By June the country was suffering from a fullfledged panic. Mr. Cleveland, who was as much committed to the maintenance of the gold standard as he was to tariff reform, called an extra session of Congress to assemble early in August. A long and a bitter struggle took place, during which the administration had to strain all its resources, but the silver purchase act was finally repealed. Nevertheless the business of the country did not recover. The drain upon the gold reserve continued; and the government was obliged repeatedly to sell bonds in order to replenish the supply.

The business depression which accompanied and followed these events was exceptionally severe; and it was felt throughout the length and breadth of the United States. It did not have the usual effect of releasing money from active business and allowing debtors more easily to obtain loans on any sufficient security, because the whole credit system had been undermined. The borrowing farmers suffered severely, often to the point of losing their farms. The prices of commodities fell and the cost of living was low, but business was so bad and so many men were out of employment that only a few were benefited. The suffering was acute and widespread and had an immediate effect upon the political situation. The administration was made responsible for the disasters, which it had worked heroically to avert. The tide began to set in favor of Republican candidates and policies.

These events, disastrous as they were to the country, were manifestly favorable to the candidacy of William McKinley, Jr., but just at this crisis a misfortune befell that gentleman which threatened to ruin his political career. In February,