Senate. His term expired on March 4, 1899. The other seat was or would be filled by his former friend, Mr. James B. Foraker, who had been elected in January, 1896, and would take office on March 4, 1897. The election of Mr. Foraker's successor was still five years away, so that the realization of his ambition had to be postponed for a long time, unless he could occupy Mr. Sherman's place.

The facts that Senator Sherman did resign his seat in order to accept the Secretaryship of State and that Mark Hanna was appointed his successor have resulted in certain ugly charges against Mr. Hanna and Mr. McKinley. They have been reproached with appointing an unfit man to the Secretaryship of State at a critical moment in the foreign relations of the country in order to make room for Mr. Hanna in the Senate, and they have also been reproached with sacrificing Mr. Sherman's personal interests for Mr. Hanna's benefit. These charges have not been made by irresponsible newspapers or political enemies, but by serious biographers and historians. Mr. Sherman himself finally came to believe that he had been ill-treated. His life, by Senator Theodore E. Burton (p. 415), contains the following passage: "It cannot be denied, however, that he left the Cabinet with a degree of bitterness towards President McKinley, more by reason of his practical supersession than for any other reason, but also with the belief that he had been transferred to the Cabinet to make room for another in the Senate."

The facts in relation to Mr. Sherman's appointment of Secretary of State, in so far as they are now accessible, do not support the claim that Mr. Sherman had any grievance on that score. It would, of course, be absurd to insist that Mr. Sherman's transferral to the State Department was made without any consideration of the desirable vacancy thereby created; but whatever Mr. Sherman's later attitude in the matter, he was glad at the time that his Secretaryship might mean Mr. Hanna's Senatorship. If he had any reluctance in resigning, it was because he feared Mr. Hanna would not succeed him. These statements are all established by Senator Sherman's own correspondence.

On Nov. 13, 1896, Mr. Sherman wrote the following letter to Mr. Hanna:

"MY DEAR HANNA:

"I was very much disappointed in not meeting you in New York. I went there on railroad business and remained down town so long that when I received your card at the hotel you had gone from the city. You have got the reputation of being a 'King-maker,' and I want to see you, not to help me to be a King, a President, a Senator or a Cabinet Officer, but as an old and valued friend, whom I would be glad to help and encourage, if, indeed, he is not already so well situated that offers and public honors will not tempt him to exchange his position as a private citizen of greatest influence in the United States. I know well enough that your 'head is level,' and if you wish to enter political life, I would like to be one of your backers. Whether you do or not, I would like very much to have a talk with you. Can't you, when next you visit New York, come to Washington and stay a day or two at my house? Mrs. Sherman will take good care of you.

"Very sincerely yours,

"JOHN SHERMAN."

The foregoing letter contains a plain intimation that soon after the election Mr. Sherman had some specific question to discuss with Mr. Hanna relating to the latter's embarkation on an official public career. Early in December Mr. Hanna went to Washington, immediately after a visit of several days with the President-elect, and while there he dined with Senator Sherman. As soon as he returned West he had another long conference with Mr. McKinley. We can only surmise what happened at these interviews, but one of Mr. Sherman's friends throws some light upon Mr. Sherman's own attitude both towards his transferal to the State Department and the consequences of such a transferal. Captain J. C. Donaldson was Mr. Sherman's closest political aide. He had repeatedly rendered loyal service to Mr. Sherman during the latter's Senatorial campaigns. The position he occupied for many years as Secretary of the Ohio State Committee with particular charge of the election of candidates to the Legislature made his services during a Senatorial canvass particularly valuable. His helpful participation in the close fight for Mr. Sherman's reëlection in 1892 has been

described in a preceding chapter. According to a letter written by Captain Donaldson to Mr. James B. Morrow, the following is the actual sequence of events leading to Mr. Sherman's resignation.

"In 1897, Mr. Sherman expressed to me his desire to return to the Senate, should the Republicans of the state desire it, and asked me to assist him in ascertaining the drift of sentiment. A few of us sought to organize a committee in his behalf to act centrally at Columbus. Before this was accomplished General Dick, then Secretary of the National Committee, requested me to go to Cleveland, to assist in the work of the National Committee. It was then agreed by Mr. Sherman's friends in Columbus that each of us should pursue the work individually until the committee should be organized, and that I should pursue the work from Cleveland. Immediately on my arrival in Cleveland, I informed both Mr. Hanna and General Dick what I intended doing, and they both cordially assented and agreed to facilitate and did facilitate my work. I wrote a series of letters to friends in every county in the state and sent the replies without comment to Senator Sherman, so that he might be informed at first hand of the real situation in the state. Just at that time a Cabinet appointment began to be discussed, and very many of his tried and true friends urged him to round out his career in the Cabinet. I was doubtful about the wisdom of his abandoning the race for the Senate, but I never ventured a suggestion further than to assure him that I thought he could be reëlected. I could see by Mr. Sherman's letters that he was not averse to a Cabinet appointment, and finally on invitation of President McKinley did accept the Premiership without any pressure on Mr. Hanna's part."

The two letters from Senator Sherman to Captain Donaldson read as follows:

"CAPT J. C. DONALDSON,

"MY DEAR SIR:

"Jan. 10, 1897.

"Your interesting letter of the 7th inst. is received and read with attention. I am very glad to read your favorable report of the condition of opinion in Ohio. Still I feel a sense of duty

to McKinley and am strongly inclined to accept his offer. The chief impediment in the way is the fear that Governor Bushnell will not appoint Hanna to fill my unexpired term. It seems to me that I ought to be allowed to designate my successor without at all affecting the question of who should be elected Senator for the term commencing March 4, 1899. I will keep you informed of any change of condition if any should occur. "Very truly yours,

"CAPT. J. Donaldson, "MY DEAR SIR:

"JOHN SHERMAN."

"Feb. 3, 1897.

"Your letter of the 1st with inclosures is received and has been read with attention. It would seem as if Governor Bushnell is doing all he can to make it difficult to reëlect him. He ought at once to settle the question of my successor, and any other selection than Hanna would be a great mistake. I will be glad any time to get clippings, indicating the political feeling in Ohio. "Very truly yours,

"JOHN SHERMAN."

The overture made by Senator Sherman to Captain Donaldson in respect to a canvass for his reëlection was itself probably prompted by a desire on the part of the Senator to find out whether, in case he refused a Cabinet office, he could keep his seat in the Senate. He had received a written tender of the Secretaryship of State about January 1, and had already practically decided to accept it. On January 15 he went to Canton and made his acceptance definite. He had many good reasons for being very glad of the chance to end his public career as the Premier of a Cabinet. He had been elected in 1892 only by a narrow margin and after a hard and costly fight. He could be reëlected only after another similar fight, and he had no longer the strength either to go on the stump or to manage the details of such a campaign. A position at the head of the Cabinet looked by comparison like a dignified and grateful refuge. He was glad to accept it, and he was glad that his vacant place might be filled by Mr. Hanna. If his retirement from the Senate was the result of a conspiracy, whereby he was kicked

upstairs for Mr. Hanna's benefit, the victim himself was one of the chief conspirators.

The other charge that the President-elect appointed an unfit man as his Secretary of State for the purpose of indirectly benefiting Mr. Hanna is more serious. It has been stated in the following words by Rear Admiral F. E. Chadwick in his history of the "Relations of the United States and Spain." He charges (p. 490, Vol. 1) that "Mr. Sherman's infirm health, soon to become painfully evident, combined with his advanced age, now seventy-four years, made the appointment one to be justly criticised. Mr. Sherman's appointment, even had he been in vigorous health, and equal to the heavy duties of his office, was, in the critical condition of affairs, on account of his previous pronounced antagonistic views to Spanish procedure, a blow to peace. . . . That the appointment was a concession to certain political adjustments in his state of a decidedly personal nature, did not add to its political morality." The accusation is, consequently, that Mr. McKinley deliberately appointed as his Secretary of State a man, who was disqualified for the office both by his record and by physical infirmities, so as to supply Mr. Hanna with a seat in the Senate.

That the appointment of Mr. Sherman was a mistake, there is, of course, no doubt; but the reasons which made it a serious mistake are more obvious long after the event than they were at the time. The appointment commended itself to Mr. McKinley as one that from many points of view was extremely desirable. Mr. Sherman was, in 1897, if not the most eminent living American statesman, at least the statesman with the longest record of useful public service. His name carried more weight than that of any other political leader. He had served in the Senate, not only as chairman of the Committee on Finance, but also as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations. Mr. McKinley may well have been ignorant of the fact that Mr. Sherman had fulminated vigorously and ignorantly in the Senate about Spanish dominion in Cuba. He had every intention of preserving peace with Spain, and he would not, under any circumstances, have appointed a man Secretary of State who in his opinion would have made the preservation of peace more difficult. He may well have thought that he was calling to his