[ applause ] so good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the kansas city public library. Robert merry is, this is his second presentation in the somewhat hallowed calls of the kansas city public library. Five star library this week from library journal. Thank you. [ applause ] hes a graduate of the university of washington. He has a masters degree from Columbia University school of journalism. Hes been a reporter for the observer, the wall street journal, managing editor and editor in chief of Congressional Quarterly and more recently the editor of the National Interest in the american conservative. The american conservative has about us passage saying it is collaborate but it sounds a lot like robert merry. This is a description of their philosophy. We believe in constitutional government, fiscal prudence, sound Monetary Policy and delineated borders, free markets and restraint in Foreign Policy mixed with diplomatic acuity. We adhere closely to our institutional maxim idea, principles over party. One would wish there were more of that kind of true conservative wandering around the beltway. Hes the author of books on the ult ma journalistic insider stewart and joseph and hes a element for american Foreign Policy and a country of vast designs, a rehabilitation of president james polk and now president mckinley, art tect of the american history. He makes the importance of expansion, polk expanding our boundaries anybody other than jefferson and the louisiana purchase. And mckinley, in the noncolonial imperialism that did bring Us Geographical expansion with the acquisition of hawaii and puerto rico, but more importantly the expansion of american power, concern and engagement as a world power, manifested in the spanish american war, the battles in cuba and in the philippines and the control over cuba and the philippines for an extended period of time. The open door in china and the vast expansion of the american economy. Polk has been called the most successful president in that what he proposed to do as president , incorporate california, oregon, texas, reduce the tariff and reinstate the independent treasury, you could see me after class to explain that one, were all accomplished. Hes the only president that saw his entire Program Written in law. Hes called one of the most morally degraded because of the shenanigans associated with the mexican war. Robert merry sides with the diagnosis as a successful politician. With mckinley, he gives us a subtle case there was a less over but perhaps just as Important Program of the president to give the United States a new place in the international stage. The only stated program of the mckinley campaign for president was on the tariff, which he was more than anyone else identified the high tariff. Historians have had a hard time discerning his plans but merry makes a strong case that he was the guide who gave us empire. And it wasnt lodge or roosevelt or admiral hahn or john hey but the deliberate and subtle mastery of William Mckinley. This is a book continuation of an ongoing effort of robert merry to reverse the contemporary academics to empower from the safe distance of the ivory tower and created a sympathetic character study of one of the architects of the american century, ladies and gentlemen, robert merry. [ applause ] thank you. Thank you, crosby, thank you very much. It is a pleasure to be here and a great pleasure to see all of you here. This is actually my third time at this library. And ive spoken at a number of libraries. Not a lot of fivestar libraries. So congratulations on that. Your copy of the book. Yes, thank you. He didnt mean to. So, i entitled my introduction to this volume on mckinley the mystery of William Mckinley and i was seeing that headline over the review of my book which by the way was very favorable. That is my effort to emulate donald trump. [ laughter ] now, i have to say that i didnt set out to solve the mystery of William Mckinley for the simple reason that i didnt know there was a mystery. I didnt understand mckinley well enough when i started the project to understand that there is something strange, there is something mysterious about him and it could be explained in perhaps two sentences. Which given all of the consequential things that happened on his president ial watch, why does he not rise higher in americas history consciousness of today and given that he was such a nonflamboyant personage how did those happen on his presidency. So as i got into the project, i have to say that the guy started to drive me crazy because i had a hard time getting a handle on him. He was not a forceful man. And yet all of these things happened on this presidency and i was having a hard time bringing this to life. The historical consensus on him was that, yeah, yeah, okay, big things happened on his watch. But he didnt have anything to do with it. He was just president. And that didnt really strike me as being totally credible. That is what i called the leaf in the wind theory William Mckinley. And an example is a book by Allen Lichtman and ken desale, 13 keys of the presidency, which i quote, it is not just about mckinley but how the presidency works. But they have a chapter on mckinley. And they write that he enjoyed, quote, one of the more successful incumbencies in american history. But then they add that he found himself, quote, benefiting in part from circumstances beyond his control. And there is the rub. Beyond his control. He was seen as less than the sum of his deeds. And what struck me also was in the academic polls which ive written about and talked about here in this hall, some years ago, that in those polls he comes in not exactly sort of middle average, maybe upper average, he comes in at like 16th, 15th, maybe 14th occasionally. Often hes below such undistinguished or failed president s as Chester Arthur who was a caretaker president , pretty good one given his background with the machine of new york. But nevertheless a caretaker president. Martin van buren who was a failed president who presided over a terrible recession, depression that he couldnt control. Rutherford hayes who became president on one of the great stolen election scandals of our history. Grover cleveland, who we know was the only president who served two nonconsecutive terms. He was rejected by either his party or voters after each thus making him the only twotime, oneterm president in our history. And John Quincy Adams who is swept away in a populous wave at the behest of andrew jackson. So when we think about happened on his watch and i urge you to not think what im going to tick off as gist bullet points on a piece of paper, but think about the Political Drama likely to attend many of these things. Well, he led us into a war with spain in 1898 and ended up being a huge success. It was a threemonth war. We destroyed the spanish empire, essentially, in the process, we destroyed two spanish fleets, their atlantic and pacific fleets. We became an empire by acquiring from spain puerto rico, guam and the philippines. We liperated cuba in the caribbean. He could have kept it but we already made a commitment that we couldnt. He kicked spain out of the caribbean and turned the caribbean into an american lake, for good measure, it should be noted, he acquired hawaii through negotiation and annexation. He set in motion the events that led eventually, i saw the display outside, to the panama canal and t. R. Gets a lot of credit for that but it was mckinley who reversed the predecessor who was an antiexpansionist and said were going to move on this canal and set in motion the studies and the actions and the planning that led to the canal. He brought about the open door to china, which basically saved china from being carved up by the industrial powers, european and japanese powers. He created trade reciprocity, when it was a hot issue for the wall street journal in the 1980s, it was then called sort of fair trade. It is to make it even so that we could have these exchange of goods back and forth across borders. He crafted the concept of noncolonial imperialism which was picked up by roosevelt when he was in world war ii and putting america in the center of it. It was on his watch that we established the special relationship with britain, just previous couple of years earlierner the cleveland administration, we almost went to war with britain over a silly border dispute in south america but after that we never had anything like that in terms of tensions with Great Britain because of the special relationship. And he created the Gold Standard we tend to look down on Gold Standards these days, but in those days it was a very big deal. And he ran when the currency issue was probably the hottest in our history and he essentially solved that in his first term. So this is a big collection of accomplishments or developments that occurred on his watch and the question is to what excellent does he deserve the credit . I myself came to conclude that the idea, the leaf in the wind theory was a myth. And i set out to explore that myth in this book. Ill let you decide whether i succeeded in that and im happy to do that because you cant decide unless you buy the book. [ laughter ] so who was this man . Born in 1843. He was the 7th of nine children. Eight of whom lived to adulthood. He grew up in ohio. A small town ohio. Imbued with what you might call the ohio culture at the time which was a reflection of what people at those times considered christian values of thrift, optimism, modesty, hard toil. His father ran and owned blast furnaces around ohio. He worked very, very hard. His mother had a strong sense of civic and religious duty. Very civic minded and worked hard for her church and community wherever they happened to be. They were in poland for most of the growing up years for william. The mother was impewbued with te things i just talked about, the socalled christian values and she was taking a train to columbus later in her life to visit her son, the governor of ohio, lady next to her struck up a conversation, are you going to columbus . Yes, i am. She said, oh, do you have family . I have a son there. That is all she said. She didnt need to explain that her son was governor of the state. So young women go off to college in pennsylvania. The first year he developed an illness, an ailment and it is never quite explained or understood what it was. But he had to return to poland where he recuperated but then he couldnt go back to college because economic difficulties had rendered a need for all of the family members to go to work. So he got two jobs. Hes a school teacher. He was like 17 at that time, 18. And he was a postal clerk. And then comes the civil war. I cant say that he enlisted immediately. He gave himself two days to think it over and try to figure out with his cousin whether this is the right thing to do. His family was very, very strong abolitionist, his mother particularly. She subscribed to horaces weekly tribune which you could get in the mail and reinforced that sentiment. So he and his cousin, william osborne, decided within a day and a half that they couldnt stay out of the war and they enlisted. He had, i think, i could accurately describe as a Pretty Amazing war record. He entered as an 18yearold private. Immediately he his commanding officer, rutherford b. Hayes was an officer wounded five times in the war, became a congressman and then governor and then became president. And hayes saw this man this responsible and so he made his sergeant and Quarter Master sergeant so he was taking care of supplies. At the battle of an teetum, he was true miles behind the line because his job was to provide provisions and he heard about a unit that had gotten caught, trapped essentially in an area of the battle that they couldnt move, they couldnt get out, nobody could get in to help them. And they were starving. And they had run out of water. The battle began early in the morning. So they hadnt had breakfast. Now it is Late Afternoon and they hadnt had lunch and theyd run out of water well before noon. So these troops were there and Young Mckinley concocted the idea of loading up a wagon with bread and coffee and water and a few other things and getting that wagon to these troops. Well hed have to go through the battle to do it. He gets a friend or some other young soldier to help him load up the wagon and get in the wagon and they head out through the surrounding forest. They encounter two officers who say this is ridiculous, you cant do this. Go back. But after they left mckinley and his associate ignored it and went on. They got to the clearing and then they made a run for it. Bullets were whizzing by and cannonballs overhead and the back of the wagon was shot away and they managed to get the provisions to the troops. God bless the lad said one of the old veterans. He immediately, as a result of that, was promoted to commission, he became a lieutenant. And then i wont go into all of them, but he had other experiences like that in which he put himself directly in harms way, almost always voluntarily and each time he got another promotion. So he ended the war as a brevet major, 22yearold major. So he goes back to poland. He decides he wants to become a lawyer and run for Congress Like his mentor rutherford hayes. And he sends a letter, starry eyed letter to hayes telling him this is what he wants to do. What you did, sir. I want to do what you did. And he writes back a letter and said, yeah, that is pretty good, but frankly, with all of this industrialization going on, i think maybe you should go into business. You could become a wealthy man by age 40 and take care of your life. Well mckinley carefully preserved the letter but discarded the advice. He knew what he wanted. So he moved to canton, ohio, where his sister had become a schoolteacher after he becomes a lawyer. And he hangs out a shingle and becomes a visitic leader in canont. He joined everything. He joins veteran groups and the church and the chamber of commerce and immediately he was pulled up into positions of leadership. So there was Something Special about this guy that led people to turn to him for leadership, even though he was not a flamboyant person. And i have a little passage in my book here describing him after his civil war experience. And i think we see here in the book, the first hint of what becomes an element of the mystery of William Mckinley. So i write, the civil war transformed young William Mckinley much as his fathers white hot forges transformed crude iron and ready for more sophisticated uses. He went to war as an unseasoned teenager with only a vague sense of who he was or what he would do with his life. He left the army in an adult questioned in ints elect and leadership and courage and demonstrated that men gravitated to his side and older men were drawn into roles of mentorship. Yet this new confidence and sense of self settled upon him softly without ostentatious or bravado to produce a de meaner of heavy quiet. He learned the power of mystique, of leaving unsaid of that which didnt need impression and keeping people in the resolve, he didnt seem bothered by it. Thus he emerged his persona, a easy going demeanor in the restless ambition. So he does run for congress. He becomes a congressman. He serves 14 years. He becomes chairman of the ways and Means Committee where hes in position to purchase his pet issue, tariffs. Protectionism. High trade tariffs to protect American Manufacturing and agriculture, eventually at a time when america was burgeoning as a productive machine. And he even, as chairman of ways and means, crafts a bill, a tariff bill, very high tariff bill, the mckinley tariff they called it of 1890. Turned out to be a bad move. The tariff didnt go into effect for quite sometime and a lot of businesses took the opportunity to raise prices because they were going to raise any way. The American People didnt like that very much and the result was a disaster for republicans in the 1890 elections. And poor mckinley is sitting in his office as the returns are coming in, disheveled, office is all messed up with postage everywhere and papers and buttons and hes sitting there smoking a cigar and in walks his editor of the newspaper and he said, jim freeze, he said it is all over. Mckinley said what am i going to say in the newspaper. And mckinley sort of looks up with a pensive look on his face and he said, in the time of darkest prevail, victory is nearest. What . He just couldnt get pessimistic about anything. It is congenitally impossible. So hes lost a seat but a year later he runs for governor and served two, twoyear terms and now ready to run for the president of the United States. Begins his campaign in 1895. He sends his good friend and his sort of his man who serves him so well, mark hannah, a very successful industrialist of ohio, from cleveland, he sent him to new york on a very important mission. He wants to find out from the big bosses, from tom plat of new york who owned the Republican Party and Matthew Quaid in pennsylvania who owned that state, had all of the patronage and he wanted to know if their lesser bosses who sort of worked under them, if they would support mckinley. Because if they did, he was a frontrunner any way, he would have a nomination sewed up. It wouldnt be a battle. And so mckinley is there and they have a nice dinner and they go into hannahs study, lined with books and they settle into overstuffed leather chairs and light up their cigars and hannah is pretty excited. He said, well, governor, it is all over but the shouting. And these guys are all go for you. There are conditions. He didnt seem particularly disturbed by the conditions. Mckinley said, well, what are they . Well, pat wants the patronage in new york and manly wanted the whole new england and ticks off a couple ever others and then plat also wanted to be treasury secretary and he wants it in writing. It seems that eight years earlier, at the beginning of the harris administration, he had gotten a similar commitment from harrison for his support but the treasury secretary never materialized so he wanted a promissory note. Mckinley looks ahead and puffs on a cigar and he stands up and walks a couple of steps back and forth and he said there are some things in life that come at too high of a price. It is worth nothing to me and less to the American People. If that is the price, im out of it. Hold on, governor. Said hannah. We could sew it up tomorrow but we could beat these guys and that is what they had to do. Because they went to various states and tried to get them favorite sons in the states so they could deny mckinley a first ballot nomination in which case they thought they could pull up somebody else to play their game and pay the price. But he beat them. He beat them and he became the nominee. And then he had to go up against William Jennings brian. You know this story. I didnt realize this, he was 36 years old in 1896. He had two terms in the house and lost that seat. He ran for the senate and lost. And he was the one of the greatest orchestrators of our history. And we all know that he got himself on this platform, the podium at the Democratic Convention and he gave the cross of gold speech. You shall not press that thorn throne of thorns upon our head and filtered his fingers across his face like blood trickling down and crucify us on a cross of gold and the convention went wild. And the reason was the country was in extremist. The panic of 1893 was still very much with the country. And the south and the west particularly, the rural areas who were really suffering. There was not enough liquidity in thur view. So they needed the free coinage of silver and that is what the rallying cry was. And hannah became the man who was going to lead that charge and he did. He got on trains and he cross crossed the country and all over the place. He was spending amazing amounts of time. He would have days when he could get up and his first speech would be at 7 00 in the morning and his last speech at 10 00 at night. Mckinley couldnt compete with that. And for one thing, he had a wife infirm. We could talk about that in q a and he didnt want to take her on whistle stop tour and leave her in canton or in washington. So, he concocted this famous front porch strategy. 750,000 americans came to canton, ohio, and lined up and came and spoke with the governor and his at his he stand on his front porch. They destroyed his yard by the way. But who cared. And it was amazing effort. You know what we say in politics today, control the message. Well, mckinley controlled the message because these various groups, it could be a church group or a labor group or a africanamerican organization or various things would want to come. They sent a letter saying we would like to come and this day works for us if it works for you and he had all of his people working on this and they sent back the letter saying well what are you going to say . What questions do you have and what is your point you want to make . So he knew exactly what they were going to say and all of the reporters from all over the country were there taking notes and he basically it was all somewhat quasiorchestrated. And it worked and he became president. So now im going to step back and im going to try to describe what kind of man that had emerged through these experiences, starting with the civil war and that sort of sense of self that he developed as a result of his success in the war. So he seemed on the outside to be well very pleasant person. Congenial. He didnt seem to be a man of force. And a lot of people wondered whether he was really a leader. He was an incrementalist in terms of the way he managed things. He didnt try to push too hard. And i will say that he was not a visionary. He was not a man of imagination. In his day, Theodore Roosevelt was a man of imagination. Henry cabot lodge, admiral mayhahn, these were men of imagination who had a great vision about american greatness and how america would bust out into the world. That wasnt where mckinley was. But it turns out he had an amazing capacity to see events as they were unfolding with clarity and find ways to sort of mesh them in ways that would allow him to sort of nudge events in the favored direction. And this gave him a great deal of sort of subterranean force. It is that heavy quiet that i was talking about. On top of that, he had an iron will. Beneath that surface of afab ilt. And he did it by convincing people to do what he wanted them to do while thinking that it was their idea. Lionel root, one of the great lawyers of the time and his war secretary, also t. R. s leader. He said he almost got his way in part because he didnt care who got the credit. That wasnt important to him at wul. Unlike t. R. And he a close friend who said i dont think mckinley let anything stand in the way of his own advancement. And julia foracre who was a wife of a prominent politician and a ally and adversary of mckinleys, more often an adversary, talked about the masks that he wore. And they werent phony. He was a pleasant fellow and generous spirited. But behind those masks was this iron will and this desire to succeed. My favorite example of this is words from a congressman from that period. Ohio congressman by the name of ben im sorry, ben butterworth. Butterworth, i came across him in the mark hannah papers. Because they were very, very Close Friends and there were a lot of letters going back and forth and i see that they were close and i believed that butterworth was clustering around hannah and mckinley. But it became clear as i got more and more into the letters, that butterworth was weary of mckinley. And then i came across a Washington Post article in which butterworth was talking about mckinley and he used it as an illustration, a sort of an idea of how mckinley operated. He said, why, if mckinley and were walking through an orchard with but one buried tree, and that tree had but two apples, mckinley would walk under the tree and pick the two apples and put one in his pocket and take a bite out of the other one and then turn to me and say, ben, do you like apples . And i think butterworth was trying to say that he was very congenial but he always seemed to get the apples. And as he managed by indirection from the shadows. So, im going to talk a little bit about some of the elements, examples of the mckinley resolve that emerged in big ways during his presidency. And one would be the spanish american war. Now the book on mckinley, and im going to talk briefly later about why i think he doesnt what has kept him from having the reputation that i believe he deserved, but the book on mckinley is that he didnt really want to go to war with spain. And the American People and congress basically thrust him against his will towards a war that he didnt want. My view is that if you study this carefully, and you understand mckinley, you realize that this isnt what happened at all. When mckinley was elected, it was a terrible very bloody, very awful awful insurrection going on in cuba. They want independence from the spanish and this had been going on, a previous tenyear insurrection that claimed a hundred thousand lives and they had settled finally but it reemerged and it was destabilizing the caribbean. It was putting meshes trying to do business in cuba at risk. It was also opening up the possibility that other european powers could see the chaos and come in and take over cuba, which would be the last thing the United States would want. It was one thing to have a fading power like spain in cuba, in the caribbean, which we considered the influence, they were there as a legacy of imperial power. But to have germany say or some other european power come in, that is untenable. So there was a great deal of anguish and anger in congress and around the country. Most of it based on humanitarian grounds, not geopolitical factors but that was a factor as well. And mckinley comes into the presidency and takes over from grover cleveland. Grover cleveland had favored the spanish over the cubans. Not because he liked the spanish particularly but because he was a status quo guy and he wanted stability. So his view was as soon as spain could sort of put down this insurrection, we go back to the status quo and everything is stable and fine. Not very realistic. Mckinley rejected that out of hand almost from day one. And from day one he concluded, i think the record is very clear if you study it carefully, he wanted spain out of the caribbean. He wanted spain out of cuba. But he didnt want to go to war to do it if he could avoid that war. So what did he do . He opened up a negotiation with a sort of a program of diplomacy with spain and spain realized that, america is becoming a pretty powerful country and this is our neighborhood and it would be very difficult if they went to war with us. They didnt want a war with us. And so they entered into the diplomacy as well. But pretty soon they could see that mckinley, his diplomacy was behind this after ability and he had an iron fist and saying to them we want this war to end. We dont care how you do it. You can win it, or you can negotiate an end to it and probably that means more autonomy, if the insurrectionists would accept that but they dont seem to want that but that is a possibility. Or you could bug out but you got to get this war over. Because it is destabilizing the region and it is untenable and unsaid was the American People are not going to put up with it for much longer. So spain finally sort of said, he cant talk to us like that. Were a sovereign country. Cuba belongs to us. It doesnt matter how close it is to your shores. No, no, bug out, they essentially said. And mckinley never wavered. He just kept pushing. And got more and more angry. And who knows what would have happened if the name battleship had not blown up in the harbor. But the fact that the battleship was there was a testament to mckinleys resolve that he was going to make sure that the spanish, who were out of the caribbean, because it was to protect american lives that might be as risk as a result of insurrection because spanish people in cuba were getting increasingly angry at america. But nevertheless, it did blow up and then war became inevitable. Another example is hawaii. We have to understand, it is amazing story and it is not a particularly entirely savory story about americans. But hawaii had been a stopping off place for americans for decades. And for other countries as well. But ultimately people with from america settled there and they were there for generations. Mostly running sug plantations, getting fabulously wealthy in the process. And pretty soon they have so much financial power they felt they should have political powe they should have political power to go with it and they ended up ending the poll knee shaen royalty that would a been residing for decades. That happened on Benjamin Harrisons watch. Cleveland, in his second term, was very upset about it and he even contemplated going in there and removing those people from the government, but didnt really want a war. Didnt want to have americans fighting essentially former americans. And so that was a state of play. Mckinley, again, rejected the policy of his predecessor and made it clear through subterranean deplodiplomacy, th he was very interested in acquiring through annexation and the americans running cuba wanted that, also. That generated a lot an antiexpansionist sentiment. Mark twain and others. And but he never waivered. He got the negotiation, the senate through congress, couldnt get it as a treaty. He didnt give up. Sent it to congress as a, to be dealt with by both houses, which didnt require twothirds vote. Only required a majority vote in both houses and thats how we got hawaii. Then there was the philippines. He, when the spanish sued for peace after three months of that war, he basically said, okay, fine, im more than happy to negotiate a peace treaty. But heres the deal. Spain has to leave cuba. Well take it temporarily, but its going to be independent. Spain has to leave puerto rico. That came out of nowhere, but we have conquered puerto rico. And spain has to give us an island in the pacific. Turned out to be guam. And that has to happen before we will even enter into negotiation. Thats really tough diplomacy. And then he basically said as for the philippines, which we had essentially acquired, took over lason after george dewy destroyed the spanish fleet in the middle bay. He said its open to negotiation. Well, thank you, mr. Mckinley, the spanish fwere saying. They asked the french ambassador of the United States to operate on their behalf and negotiate for them. A gentleman by the name of cambone. He said you cant really get any more glory than youve already gained in this war of yours, so im assuming youll be very generous. We found out he wasnt generous at all. Then the question was what was he going to do about the philippines. While the negotiations in paris were dpoeti inggoing on, he pon and kind of concluded ultimately that he had to have a polling station because they were building this big global navy. And you couldnt have a global navy about cooling stations. You couldnt have cooling stations without territory around the globe. The best place would be the bay, but he couldnt really control all subic bay unless he had all of la son, the i would. If he had lason, spain wasnt going to be able to keep the philippines. The people of the philippines hated the spanish. So now that they had been defeated, they werent going to be able to go back in there. The question was, who was going to lead the philippines . It wasnt going to be the filipino people. It would be germany or some other power. Germany was on the prowl for possessions. For colonies. If germany had these other colonies, they werent going to be secure. They had gotten them into a war. It was insurrection. Very, very difficult. Sympathetic figure from my view, who ran that insurrection. Ultimately, he was captured and that kind of broke the back of the insurgency, but it went on for years and into roosevelts administration. So, as i say, that seems to be a konz quconsequential presidency. And so why doesnt he get more credit . No respect . One reason has to do with his successor, Teddy Roosevelt. Im a great admirer of roosevelt. I think hes a great genius. Might have been the greatest genius who became president. What that guy could do with that brain of his was Pretty Amazing, but he never shared credit with anybody and he was self absorbed. Even his kids said he longed to be the bride at every wedding. And the corps at every funeral. And he, when mckinley was killed in buffalo, six months into his second term, Teddy Roosevelt immediately then became president and said words to the effect of, i intend to govern just as my predecessor did and his agenda would be my agenda. Words to that effect. Then two days, he gets to the white house from buffalo, brings in a bunch of reporters, and the market didnt swoon so he didnt feel like he had to say those things anymore and he said i intend to govern just as if the electors had elected me as president and not mckinley. Which is a remarkable thing to be said while mckinley was lying in state in the capitol rotunda. Roosevelt was conscious with the narrative and put himself in the center of the narrative and over the succeeding decades, his admiring geographic add doerring biographers basically bought the narrative and the narrative departme didnt quite work if they said pr did these incredible things, but the foundation was laid by his predecessor. So, in my view, mckinley gets the short end in the stick in terms of that interpretation. In describing this turn of events and this historic al narrative building, i describe tr and ill quote a little bit from here. Impetuous, volable, amusing, grandiose, prone to marking his territory with political defiance, roosevelt stirred the imagination of the American People as mckinley never had. To the manl solidity, safety and caution, the rough rider offered a mind that moved by flashes or whims or sudden impulses as William Alan White described him. He took the American People on a political roller coaster ride and to many, it was thrilling. It was thrilling and it was significant it was, help ed to find define e america in the 20th century, but behind him was one William Mckinley, who may be mysterious, but is a consequential president and i think he was even worth the three years of toil that i put in on his behalf. Thank you very much. I think we can have some questions. Please come up microphone if you have other questions so people at home watching tv can hear you. Have you changed your ranking of mckinley since your book, where they stand . Well, it doesnt actually offer, i dont offer my own ranking. I talk about what president s have done and what constituted greatness and your greatness or mediocrity or whatever. But the answer to that, sir, my own estimation, mckinley is yeah, its higher, and when i note those president s that i consider to have been either failures or not particularly consequential, i would certainly put them above those people. So i think he did preside in my pant onin 11th, 12th, Something Like that. I havent really focused on where id put him directly, but somewhere in there. Questions. Can you talk about the i drda a an inova lid and how that shaped mckinleys american publics compassion for him in the death of the children . The point in the story, when mckinley moved to canton as a young lawyer, he encounter ed, after he had been there for a while and had been in the war and had lost, et cetera, he encountered young ida saxton. She was daughter of probably the richest man in canton. Her grandfather brought a train press from pennsylvania started the canton repository and it was a successful newspaper then her father went into mining and banking and other things. She grew up, she was quite lovely. She was a sparkling personality. She was sentlating in many ways. And she had many, many suitors, but she sort of fixated finally on mckinley and they were married. There were 1,000 people at her wedding. At their wedding according to the repository, owned by her father, so maybe thats an exaggeration, but never the less, it was a big, big wedding. Big occasion at the time. He was just about, he was moving up into politics. It was kind of a storybook thing. So a year after they were mar marri married, their first daughter arrives, katy. A little bit more than a year after that, their second daughter arrives. She becomes pregnant for the second time. During that pregnancy, she learns that her mother is dying, probably of cancer. They were very, very close. It affected her greatly. Whether it affected her pregnancy is not absolutely clear, but she had a troubled pregnancy and her daughter lived only five months. That sent her into a tremendous depression. And it wasnt clear that she was ever going to be able to come out of it. He just coaxed her out of it through a will the of patience and just refusing to let go. Sometime after that, the first daughter, katy, died. Then she went back in a terrible depression. During this time, Something Else happened. Its described as a karnl accident, but nobody knows exactly what happened. I suspect she fell backwards and hurt her spine in some way, because she became rather impossible. Sort of intermittent, but she was often confined to a wheelchair. Even when she wasnt, she walked with a cane. When she was at the white house, she could walk down the stairs with a cane, had a new elevator in the white house, but it didnt work much of the time, so if it didnt work, he would have to carry her up the stairs, which he did. Then on top of all this, she developed epilepsy, which in those days, which was considered kind of mental illness. You didnt want anyone to know you were mentally ill, but these see shoou seizures would come and it affected their marriage, their lives. It affected ida tremendously. Her father let her run the bank when he was traveling around and as a young woman as 20, she was running this bank. It was very unusual in those days. Now, she reduced to srt of sed dare life. She crochets and does other things like that and becomes sort of narrow in her outlook. Very devoted to her husband. Thinks hes the greatest politician in the history of america. And but she becomes somewhat peevish and somewhat difficult. He never waivered in his devotion to her and just basically accepted that as sort of part of life. So, when this became kind of known as he was emerging as a National Figure politically, it became a an element of identity for mckinley. The man who took such good care of his troubled wife. There are some who suspect it was manipulated to some extent as a sort of political advantage. So thats the story. Yes, sir. The first Vice President , what happened to him that tr was able to get on the ticket . Hobart died of cancer in the middle of the first term. I think in the third year of the first term sochlt the result was that mckinley did not have a Vice President. For a significant part of his first term. And tr, meanwhile, had been his assistant navy secretary. Mckinley wasnt sure he wanted to give tr that job. He didnt know him that well, but knew he of tended to be impetuous and got into a rouse as he said to one of trs good friends, who was pushing for him to have that job. And they promised him, no, no, trs not going to do that. Hes going to be real. Hes going to be controllable. Well, he wasnt. But he did an amazing thing. When the war came, he resigned the office. He put together the rough riders and did it extremely courageous when he ran up san juan hill, actually kettle hill, and becomes along with george dewy, one of the two greatest american heroes. They loved him. He knew exactly how to play it. When the Second Convention comes up in 1900, it goes crazy for teddy and it was a force majeure. Couldnt be e resisted. Mark hannah didnt like tr, tried to resist and mckinley had to send a note to him saying cease and desist because you cant put me in this position of beginning against the sentiment of the convention. Mark hannah sends a note to mckinley saying it came out fine. You had to admonish me, but im happy with it. Your job now is to live for the next four years and when he died, mark hannah is quoted as saying now that cowboy is going to be president of the United States. Fz yes, sir. At that time, of course the south was still, you know, sort of in and out of the union and of course that brings up civil rights and things like that. But what was his policies toward the farmer Confederate States . Did he want them back . Was he a forgiving person . Did he want to reconcile with the south . And how did that approach the civil rights positions. You have to go back to his great mentor. Rudd hayes became president by making what you might call a deal to end reconstruction and a lot of recent historians, giving a revisionist deal of reconstruction is considering that to be a terrible thing because it kept africanamericans in the south down for the next 100 years. But the deal was essential ly ws weve got to stitch this country back together and its not going to be easy. Probably going to have to sacrifice civil rights for a period of time. But they cut that deal and so by the time mckinley was president , he was still, he was still concerned about bringing the sections back together. Spanish american war helped to heal. Drawing a blank, but youve got one of the Great Southern calvary generals. Wheeler. Wheeler. Yes, thank you. Gave him a command and when he was in cuba and they got the spanish on the run, he gets the he kind of louises, lost sight of where he was and said, we got, got those yankees on the run. They were spanish. His position towards africanamericans ended up being what i would call patronizing and you can, you can, there are worse words you can use and i wouldnt necessarily say those words, but basically, by patronizing, i mean he had a Good Relationship with a lot of africanamerican organizations. And he praised them for working so hard under difficult circumstances. Towards the end of his presidency, some of these groups were becoming quite agitated against him. One quick follow up. Was any of his cabinet former confederates, southern . No, he wanted to get so somebody who was a southerner. He got the one person assumed to be simp thympathetic to the sou from maryland. That was as far south as e he got in terms of his cabinet making it. Yes, sir. Who would be the politician in most recent times most similar to mckinley . I would say eisenhower. I see very significant parallels between them. Fred wingstein worote the book about how eisenhower managed from the shadows and by direction and people thought he was sort of bumbling and when he didnt want to explain something, he would become inarticulate and everyone said, especially stevenson, would say this guy cant even express himself, but it was all with a purpose. And i think that that was somewhat the way mckinley operated. So i think those two people were quite similar. Two related questions. The first, you mentioned mckinleys relationship to empire. In 1898, there was an antiimperialist league. William james, harvard professor who was strongly against imperialism. You Say Something about mckinley and how he reacted to that criticism on imperialism then the other question was about his assassination. Could you say a word about that . Yeah. Well, yes, indeed, there was a strong Anti Imperialist Movement in america. Mark twain was involved in it. Carl shirts. And mckinley was stunned. He never took personally any of the turmoil politics and so, he, you also upped the incidence of the president talking to American People. He would explain what the policy was and why he had done it. He understood he had this opposition. It was bad when when foreign affairs, with the insurrection and he had, he was on the defensive. But he basically just handled it as part of the Great American debate. Assassination. He was supposed to be at the great pan American Exposition in buffalo in the spring of 190 1rks but he was traveling to california. Part of it, part of that policy he had, part of the practice he had of traveling around and g e giving speeches to the American People. He thought that was very important. One of the things that led one of his academic biographer to suggest he was the first modern president among other things, but never the less, ida got sick. She developed an infection. It got into her blood and she almost died. They went immediately back to washington, they were in san francisco. On the way to washington state. So the, his appearance was to postpone to the fall. To september. Thats when the anarchist concocted the idea of assassinating him. Mckinley was very fatalistic. Maybe part of that optimism about the prospect that anybody could possibly harm the president , so he would talk openly with people. Secret Service People like crazy, but he didnt worry about it very much and sawgas had his hand in a bandage, a sling, like it had been injured. Mckinley reached for his right hand, left hand, and fired it right pointblank. It did not penetrate very much, but mckinley went back on his feel hell and shallgas fired a second time. Went into his abdomen. Lodged there. They couldnt find the bullet. They operated rather quickly. Couldnt find the bullet, but concluded that looking for it was probably more dangerous than leaving it, so they did and he was recuperating nicely. Back in those days, they didnt really understand infection and sepsis. I think he lasted two weeks before he died. I believe thats it. Robert gray, thank you very, very much. Thank you. Mr. Gray will be signing the book in the hall. Thank you. At morehead, we still talk about the role that we played on the front line of the cold war. Because the space race was a major, Major Initiative within the cold war. T minus 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, zero. Ignition. We are on t