be glad to coöperate with you to that end. Of course, no one can tell about the choice of candidates. I will tell you frankly that I am not pledged to any one, but I am opposed to Mr. Daugherty from a party standpoint, and I understand that we agree in that position. You are right in your judgment that we should not meet before going to Columbus; but I will see you some time during the night before the first day of the Convention. "I admire your good sense and good management and have faith that we can work together.

"Sincerely yours,

"M. A. HANNA."

The campaign that followed in the fall of 1899 was very lively. Mr. Hanna's personal prominence and his relations with the administration made it of national importance, while the fact that John R. McLean was the Democratic nominee gave the people of Ohio a chance to vote on an echo of the senatorial fight of January, 1898. The speakers on both sides discussed national issues exclusively. Mr. Hanna put in a large part of October on the stump, and was greeted everywhere with favor and enthusiasm by large crowds. He spoke incidentally on the issue of Imperialism; but in the great majority of his speeches he claimed support for the Republican party, because of the fulfilment of its pledges. By the fall of 1899 prosperity had been undoubtedly restored, and equally without doubt the revival of business enterprise was in part due to the increasing confidence of business men in the political situation. A political party can very rarely claim any responsibility for the course of business during one of its periods of domination; but in this case the Republicans were justified in crediting themselves and their leaders with the business improvement. The Bryan Democracy and the "Populistic" agitation in the West associated therewith had threatened the business of the country with real dangers; and their successful opponents had contributed both to the exorcism of the free silver ghost and to the renewal of general confidence.

The speeches of Mr. Hanna delivered in the fall of 1899 give the first clear and well-rounded expression of his answer to the general American economic problem. The situation had

changed essentially since 1897. Not only had prosperity really come, but it had brought with it unexpected developments. The latter part of 1898 and 1899 had constituted a period of unprecedented industrial reorganization. Almost every morning newspaper was filled with accounts of the formation of new railroad and industrial combinations. The relation between this process of business consolidation and the existing Republican political supremacy was unmistakable. It became the subject of Democratic attack during the fall of 1899, and Mr. Hanna did not hesitate or fear to come out frankly in favor of these combinations. He approved of them as a natural business growth, due to the excesses of desperate competition which had prevailed during the business depression. He regarded them, furthermore, as necessary instruments for the development of the export trade of the country, which at that juncture was becoming unprecedentedly large in manufactured products. He urged upon his listeners the desirability of his own bill subsidizing American shipping as a necessary help to the proper development of this export trade. He wanted the government to take this further step in promoting industry, in order that American manufacturers might have the advantage of adequate means of transportation in making their assault on the markets of the world.

The result was an emphatic indorsement of the administration. Mr. George K. Nash was elected by a plurality of about 50,000 votes over McLean. The tide had evidently turned in the East as well as in the West. Similar testimonials were obtained in other states, and undoubtedly the increasing prosperity of business and the effect thereof upon the earnings of labor contributed decisively to the Republican success. The renomination of the President, who had fought the war and under whose administration prosperity had returned was assured, while at the same time there was every indication that Mr. Bryan would again be the candidate of the Democratic party.

Seldom has any administration after three years in office commanded such united support from its party as in the beginning of 1900 did the administration of Mr. McKinley. Much of the credit of this result belongs to the diplomacy with which the President handled the Republican leaders in and out of Congress.

He had the gift of refusing requests without incurring enmity, of smoothing over disagreements, of conciliating his opponents, of retaining his friends without necessarily doing too much for them, of overlooking his own personal grievances and of steering the virtuous middle path between the extremes and eccentricities of party opinion. But decisive as was the President's contribution to the popularity of his administration, Mr. Hanna also deserves a certain share of the credit. More than any other single man, with the exception of the President himself, Mr. Hanna was responsible for the operation of that most vital of party functions, the distribution of patronage. Under his direction and that of the President the appointments to office became, as it rarely had been in the past, a source of strength to the McKinley administration.

During these years Mr. Hanna accomplished in an exceptionally able manner the work of reënforcing and consolidating the existing leadership of the Republicans. The distribution of patronage necessarily occasions many personal disappointments and grievances, which weaken the President with certain individuals and factions in his party. Any disposition on the part of the President or his responsible advisers to play favorites or to cherish grudges, any tendency to misjudge men and to be deceived by plausible misrepresentation, any failure to distinguish properly between the more influential and the less influential factions, has a damaging effect upon party harmony and its power of effective coöperation. To name only recent examples Mr. Cleveland, Mr. Harrison and Mr. Taft have all weakened their administrations by mistakes in selections to office. No doubt President McKinley and Mr. Hanna made similar mistakes both from the point of view of administrative efficiency and of good feeling within the party, but on the whole they certainly exercised the President's power of appointment with unusual success. They not only selected for the higher offices efficient public servants, but by virtue of an unusually clear understanding of individuals and local political conditions, they made leading Republicans feel, in spite of certain individual grievances, that the offices were being distributed for the best interests of the whole party.

So far as Mr. Hanna was concerned, this success was due to

his usual ability in partially systematizing and organizing the distribution of offices, while at the same time giving life to the system by tact and good judgment in dealing with individuals and with exceptional cases. In all those Northern states in which the Republicans exercised effective power, the system was already established and required merely good judgment in its application. It was in the South that he introduced a new and what he believed to be a definite system of making Federal appointments. The local offices were usually filled on the recommendation of the defeated congressional candidate, and Mr. Hanna expected by the recognition of these leaders of forlorn hopes to induce a better quality of men to run for the office. For the higher Federal offices, such as the United States Judges and Attorneys, the recommendations were usually accepted of a Board of Referees - consisting of the defeated candidate for Governor, the chairman of the State Committee, and the member of the National Committee from that state. To a large extent the system worked automatically all over the Union, but of course any such method goes to pieces, in so far as conflicting individual or factional claims are intruded. It was in dealing with these exceptional cases that Mr. McKinley's tact was useful as well as Mr. Hanna's gift of understanding other men, of getting their confidence and of bending or persuading them to his will.

In all these matters Mr. Hanna's disposition to live and let live, his instinct for dealing candidly and fairly with the other man, was as much of a help to him in politics as it had been in business. When he could not do what was asked of him, he did not hesitate or equivocate. He told plainly why he must refuse, and as his reasons were usually convincing, the applicant rarely departed with a grievance. Moreover, his decisions and recommendations were really dictated by the welfare of the party and not by personal interest or favoritism. He did, indeed, pursue relentlessly the Ohio Republicans, who had entered the conspiracy against his election to the Senate, and he rewarded almost all of his prominent supporters. But the testimony is unanimous that in other respects his recommendations for office were both disinterested and wise. He never presumed upon his own power either with the President, the heads of departments

or with his colleagues. His influence was based largely upon his instinctive sense of its own necessary limits. If he had really been or tried to be an autocrat beyond the limits within which autocratic management was permissible under the official and unofficial rules, his influence would soon have withered away.

Certain of Mr. Hanna's political methods have frequently been misinterpreted. The facts that he was indifferent to the Civil Service law and believed in rewarding party workers with government offices, have created an impression that he was also indifferent to efficiency in public departmental work. Such was far from being the case. He wanted to put good men in all important offices. Once they were installed, he was careful to leave them alone. Many different officials, who directly or indirectly owed their appointment to Mr. Hanna, have asserted emphatically that he never bothered them with recommendations about their assistants or about the conduct of their offices. Pressure was continually being brought to bear upon him to obtain favors for various people from the heads of executive departments in Washington. He would sometimes write letters, stating the request and adding that he would be glad to see it granted. But in such cases he would almost always add a postscript in his own handwriting, advising his correspondent that if his request was in any way injurious to departmental discipline or efficiency, it should be ignored-as indeed they often As another illustration to the same effect I have before me a copy of a letter to Mr. Frank M. Chandler in which he was advising the latter about the nomination of certain judges for the Court of Common Pleas in Cuyahoga County: "Pick good men above all other considerations," he wrote, and emphasized the sentence with an underline. "I would rather take our chances with good candidates, and if defeated, be defeated with good men." Many other letters to similar effect could be quoted.

were.

He objected to Civil Service reform as much from the point of view of a business man as from that of a politician. He knew that any private business would be ruined which tended to make subordinates independent of their chiefs. When he named a man for a responsible office, he always allowed the appointee to select his own assistants. After Mr. Charles F. Leach had been