were printed in German, French, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Dutch and Hebrew, as well as English.

The National Committee had this reading matter prepared, but it was usually shipped to the State Committees for actual distribution. To a constantly increasing extent, however, the documents were sent direct to individuals from Chicago. They found by experience that the State and County Committees frequently did not coöperate with sufficient energy or sufficient intelligence in the distribution of the reading matter. Two weeks before the election, so it is said, several carloads of pamphlets had not been unloaded from the freight cars at Columbus, Ohio. The Committee also distributed material direct to the newspapers. Country journals with an aggregate circulation of 1,650,000 received three and one-half columns of specially prepared matter every week. Another list of country newspapers with an aggregate weekly circulation of about 1,000,000 were furnished with plates, while to still another class were supplied ready prints. Of course cartoons, posters, inscriptions and buttons were manufactured by the carload the most popular poster being the five-colored, single-sheet lithograph circulated as early as the St. Louis Convention, bearing a portrait of Mr. McKinley with the inscription underneath, "The Advance Agent of Prosperity."

The most serious problem confronting the Committee was that of raising the money necessary to pay the expenses of the campaign. Its work had been organized on a scale unprecedented in the political history of the country. The cost of its organization and of its bureaus of printed matter and speakers was substantially larger than that incurred during previous campaigns. It was not only conducting an unusually exhaustive and expensive educational canvass, but it was assuming a good deal of work usually undertaken and paid for by the State Committees. Unless a proportionately large amount of money could be raised, the operations of the National Committee must be curtailed and Mr. McKinley's chances of success compromised.

The task of raising this money belonged chiefly to Mr. Hanna. He had planned this tremendous campaign, and he must find the means of paying for it. Neither was it as obvious as it is

now how this was to be done. The customary method of voluntary contribution, helped out by a little dunning of the protected manufacturers, was wholly insufficient. Money in sufficient volume could not be raised locally. The dominant issue endangered the national financial system, and the money must be collected in New York, the headquarters of national finance. In 1896 Mr. Hanna was not as well known in New York as he subsequently became. He was a Middle Western business man with incidental Eastern connections. Wall Street had not favored McKinley's nomination. Its idea of a presidential candidate had been Mr. Levi P. Morton. It required some persuasion and some enlightenment before it would unloosen its purse to the required extent.

Mr. James J. Hill states that on August 15, just when the strenuous work of the campaign was beginning, he met Mr. Hanna by accident in New York and found the chairman very much discouraged. Mr. Hanna described the kind of work which was planned by the Committee and its necessarily heavy expense. He had been trying to raise the needed money, but with only small success. The financiers of New York would not contribute. It looked as if he might have to curtail his plan of campaign, and he was so disheartened that he talked about quitting. Mr. Hill immediately offered to accompany Mr. Hanna on a tour through the high places of Wall Street, and during the next five days they succeeded in collecting as much money as was immediately necessary. Thereafter Mr. Hanna did not need any further personal introduction to the leading American financiers. Once they knew him, he gained their confidence. They could contribute money to his war chest, with none of the qualms which they suffered when "giving up" to a regular political "boss." They knew that the money would be honestly and efficiently expended in order to secure the victory of Republican candidates. Never again during the campaign of 1896 or during any campaign managed by Mr. Hanna was the National Committee pinched for cash.

With the assistance of his newly established connections in the financial district, Mr. Hanna organized the business of collecting contributions as carefully as that of distributing reading matter. Inasmuch as the security of business and the

credit system of the country were involved by the issues of the campaign, appeals were made to banks and business men, irrespective of party affiliations, to come to the assistance of the National Committee. Responsible men were appointed to act as local agents in all fruitful neighborhoods for the purpose both of soliciting and receiving contributions. In the case of the banks, a regular assessment was levied, calculated, I believe, at the rate of one-quarter of one per cent of their capital, and this assessment was for the most part paid. It is a matter of public record that large financial institutions such as the life insurance companies, were liberal contributors. The Standard Oil Company gave $250,000, but this particular corporation was controlled by men who knew Mr. Hanna and was unusually generous. Other corporations and many individual capitalists and bankers made substantial but smaller donations. Mr. Hanna always did his best to convert the practice from a matter of political begging on the one side and donating on the other into a matter of systematic assessment according to the means of the individual and institution.

Although the amount of money raised was, as I have said, very much larger than in any previous or in any subsequent campaign, its total has been grossly exaggerated. It has been estimated as high as $12,000,000; but such figures have been quoted only by the yellow journals and irresponsible politicians. A favorite estimate has been $6,000,000 or $7,000,000; but even this figure is almost twice as large as the money actually raised. The audited accounts of the Committee exhibited collections of a little less than $3,500,000, and some of this was not spent. Of this sum a little over $3,000,000 came from New York and its vicinity, and the rest from Chicago and its vicinity. In 1892 the campaign fund had amounted to about $1,500,000, but the Committee had finished some hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. The money raised in New York was spent chiefly in Chicago. To the $335,000 collected in the West $1,565,000 was added from the East, thus bringing the expenditures of the Chicago headquarters up to $1,970,000.

The way in which this money was spent affords a good idea of the scope of the Committee's work. The general office cost about $13,000 in the salaries of the staff and in miscellaneous

expenses. The Bureau of Printed Matter spent approximately $472,000 in printing, and $32,000 in salaries and other expenses. The cost of the Bureau of Speakers was $140,000. The shipping department needed some $80,000. About $276,000 was contributed to the assistance of local and special organizations, and no less than $903,000 to the State Committees. These figures are official and confirm what has already been stated. The distribution of pamphlets, the furnishing of speakers and the expenses of organization account for half the expenses of the Chicago headquarters. The State Committees, on whom devolved the work of special canvassing and of getting out the vote, claimed the remainder. A large appropriation to the Congressional Committee was furnished from New York. Towards the end of the campaign money came pouring in so abundantly that the Committee balanced its books with a handsome surplus. It was urged upon Mr. Hanna that out of this surplus he reimburse himself for his expenses in nominating McKinley, but, of course, he refused to consider the suggestion.

The question of political ethics involved by the collection of so much money from such doubtful sources, if it ever was a question, has been settled. American public opinion has emphatically declared that no matter what the emergency, it will not permit the expenses of elections to be met by individuals and corporations which may have some benefit to derive from the result. But in 1896 public opinion had not declared itself, and the campaign fund of that year was unprecedented only in its size. It resulted from the development of a practice of long standing, founded on a real need of money with which to pay election expenses, and shared wherever opportunity permitted by both political parties. Mr. Hanna merely systematized and developed a practice which was rooted deep in contemporary American political soil, and which was sanctioned both by custom and, as he believed, by necessity.

The unnecessary complications of the American electoral system, requiring as it does the transaction of an enormous amount of political business, resulted inevitably in the development of political professionalism and in large election expenses. In the beginning these expenses were paid chiefly by candidates

for office or office-holders. When supplies from this source were diminished, while at the same time expenses were increasing, politicians naturally sought some other sources of income, and they found one of unexpected volume in the assessments which they could levy upon business men and corporations, which might be injured or benefited by legislative action. The worst form which the practice took consisted in the regular contribution by certain large corporations to the local machines of both parties for the purpose either of protection against legislative annoyance or for the purchase of favors. During the latter part of the eighties and the early nineties this practice of bipartisan contributions prevailed in all those states in which many corporations existed and in which the parties were evenly divided in strength.

We have seen that an essential and a useful part of Mark Hanna's political activity had been connected with the collection of election expenses for the Republican party in Cleveland and Ohio. Under prevailing conditions his combination of personal importance both in business and in politics was bound to result in some such connection. But he had never been associated with the least defensible phase of the practice viz. that of contributing to both machines for exclusively business purposes. He was a Republican by conviction, and he spent his own money and collected money from others for the purpose of electing Republican candidates to office. As he became prominent in politics, however, it so happened that the business interests of the country came to rely more and more on the Republican party. It was the organization which supported the protective tariff which was more likely to control legislation in the wealthier states, and which finally declared in favor of the gold standard. The Republican party became the representative of the interests and needs of American business, and inevitably American business men came liberally to its support. Their liberality was increased because of the personal confidence of the business leaders in Mr. Hanna's efficiency and good faith, and because in 1896 these leaders, irrespective of partisan ties, knew that the free coinage of silver would be disastrous to the credit and prosperity of the country. In that year the Republicans happened to be entirely right and