the Democrats entirely wrong upon a dominant economic issue. The economic inexperience and immaturity of large parts of the United States and the readiness of a section of the American people to follow untrustworthy leadership in economic matters, had given legitimate business an essential interest in the triumph of one of the political parties. Business men can scarcely be blamed for fighting the heresy in the only probably effective

manner.

Mark Hanna's reputation has suffered because of his connection with this system, but closely associated as he was with it, he is not to be held responsible for its blameworthy aspects. All he did was to make it more effective by virtue of his able expenditure of the money, of his systematization of the collections, and by the confidence he inspired that the money would be well spent. The real responsibility is much more widely distributed. The system was the inevitable result of the political organization and ideas of the American democracy and the relation which had come to prevail between the American political and economic life. As soon as it began to work in favor of only one of the two political parties it was bound to be condemned by public opinion; but the methods adopted to do away with it may be compared to an attempt to obliterate the pest of flies merely by the slaughter of the insects. The question of how necessarily heavy election expenses are to be paid, particularly in exciting and closely contested campaigns, has been hitherto evaded.

Mr. Hanna's opponents have, however, made him individually and in a sense culpably responsible for a traditional relation between politics and business. The economic issue dividing the parties in 1896 was easily perverted into a class issue, and the class issue was exploited for all it was worth by the other side. The vituperation which the representatives of the poor are privileged to pour out on the representatives of the wellto-do was concentrated on Mark Hanna. He became the victim of a series of personal attacks, which for their persistence, their falsity and their malignancy have rarely been equalled in the history of political invective. Mark Hanna was quoted and pictured to his fellow-countrymen as a sinister, corrupt type of the Money-man in politics-unscrupulous, inhumanly selfish,

the sweater of his own employees, the relentless enemy of organized labor, the besotted plutocrat, the incarnate dollar-mark.

The peculiar malignancy of these attacks was due partly to certain undesirable innovations which had recently appeared in American journalism. Mr. William R. Hearst was beginning his career as a political yellow journalist. He was the first newspaper publisher to divine how much of an opportunity had been offered to sensational journalism by the increasing economic and political power of American wealth; and he divined also that the best way to use the opportunity would be to attach individual responsibility to the worst aspects of a system. The system must be concentrated in a few conspicuous individual examples, and they must be ferociously abused and persistently villified. The campaign of 1896 offered a rare chance to put this discovery into practice, and inevitably Mr. McKinley and Mr. Hanna, as the most conspicuous Republican leaders, were selected as the best victims of assault.

The personal attack on Mark Hanna was begun somewhat before Mr. McKinley's nomination. Early in 1896 Alfred Henry Lewis had published in the New York Journal an article claiming to be an interview with Mr. Hanna and making him appear as a fool and a braggart. In a letter to the owner of the Journal, Mr. Hanna protested vigorously against the misrepresentation, but without effect. Later the personal attack upon him was reduced to a system. For a while Mr. Lewis appears to have been stationed in Cleveland in order to tell lies about him. He was depicted as a monster of sordid and ruthless selfishness, who fattened himself and other men on the flesh and blood of the common people. This picture of the man was stamped sharply on the popular consciousness by the powerful but brutal caricatures of Homer Davenport. Day after day he was portrayed with perverted ability and ingenuity as a Beast of Greed, until little by little a certain section of public opinion became infected by the poison. Journals of similar tendencies elsewhere in the country followed the lead with less ability and malignancy but with similar persistence.

When these attacks began Mr. Hanna was strongly tempted to bring suit for libel and to cause the arrest of Alfred Henry Lewis; but after consulting with his friends he decided that

Lewis and Hearst were aiming at precisely this result with the expectation of profiting more from the notoriety and the appearance of persecution than they would lose in damages. So he decided to disregard the attacks, libellous as they probably were, and he continued to do so until the end. But he was very much wounded by them and suffered severely from the vindictive and grotesque misrepresentation. Like all men whose disposition was buoyant and expansive, and whose interests were active and external, he was dependent upon the approval of his associates. As the scope of his political activity increased, the approbation which he wanted and needed had to come from a widely extended public opinion. Hence, while he was by no means a thin-skinned man, and was accustomed to stand up under the blows received in the rough and tumble of political fighting, he could not but wince under a personal distortion which was at once so gross and brutal, and yet so insidious and so impossible to combat. He had been brought up in the midst of the good-fellowship characteristic of the Middle West of the last generation. He was used to a social atmosphere of mutual confidence and a general and somewhat promiscuous companionship. He was accustomed to deal fairly with other men and to be dealt fairly with by them; and this concentration upon his own person of a class hatred and suspicion wounded and staggered him, until he became accustomed to it, and was better able to estimate its real effect upon public opinion.

The practice of attaching to a few conspicuous individuals a sort of criminal responsibility for widely diffused political and economic abuses and evils has, of course, persisted; and in so large a country as the United States it has necessarily been performed by newspapers and magazines. The people who have participated in this pleasant and profitable business are recommended to ponder the following sentence from Aristotle's "Politics," which is as true of the American Democracy as it was of that of Greece. "The gravest dangers to democracy," says Aristotle, usually occur "from the intemperate conduct of the demagogs, who force the propertied classes to combine by instituting malicious prosecutions against individuals or by inciting the masses against them as a body."

Whatever one may think about the rights and wrongs of the

campaign fund of 1896, it must be admitted that it served its purpose. If the campaign of instruction had not been organized on the scale undertaken by the National Committee, the election of Mr. McKinley might never have taken place. The Committee itself had for a long time no confidence in the success of its labors. Not until early in October did they begin to feel that the tide had been turned. The decisiveness of the result must not deceive any one into the belief that it was inevitable. The momentum and enthusiasm attained toward the middle of October by the campaign on behalf of Mr. McKinley's election was the result of the vigorous, exhaustive and systematic work performed by the National Committee during the two previous months.

Mr. Hanna had a method of conducting a political campaign, not unlike that of a coach in training a foot-ball team. His attempt was gradually to wind up public opinion until it was charged with energy and confidence. The different moves in the campaign were planned in advance. All the general preparations were completed by a certain date. There followed some particularly vigorous special onslaughts on particular states; and when this work was satisfactorily accomplished, preparations were made to hold the ground while the hard work was concentrated on other less doubtful states. The execution of this general plan was carried out with the utmost care and vigor. The whole organization was inspired by the energy and confidence of its chief. Gradually a contagious enthusiasm and élan was communicated to the entire body. The different lines of work converged towards the end of the campaign. Their effect was cumulative, and their ultimate goal a condition of complete readiness on the Saturday night before election.

In the year 1896 Mr. Hanna was conducting his first National Campaign, and he was, perhaps, over-eager. At all events he pushed his preparations somewhat too hard. He was ready for the election a week before election day, and he feared that he could not hold his ground. He was afraid, that is, of overtraining; and the last week was a period for him of intense uneasiness. And he might well be uneasy, because the country had been worked up to a condition of high excitement. By skilful management and a good cause the hurrah for Bryan

had been converted into a hurrah for McKinley. Enthusiasm could not be maintained at such a pitch, and if it began to subside, the recession might attain a dangerous volume. His fears proved to be unnecessary. The electorate had not only been worked up to a high state of enthusiasm, but they had been convinced. The victory on election day realized Mr. Hanna's highest hopes and expectations. No President since U. S. Grant entered office supported by so large a proportion of the American people as did William McKinley.