President s role in the spanish american war acquiring hawaii and the philippines and liberating cuba from spain, and implementing an open door policy with china. This was recorded at the kansas city public library, in kansas city, missouri in 2017. Its just a learn our. Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to kansas city public library. Robert mary, this is his second presentation in this somewhat halls of the kansas city public library. Five star library, from the library journal. [applause] hes a graduate of the university of washington, has a masters degree from Columbia University school of journalism, hes been a reporter for the observer the wall street journal, managing editor and executive editor and editor in chief of congressional quarterly, and more recently, editor of the National Interest in the american conservative. American conservative has been about this passage, he said its collaborative, it sounds a lot like robert mary. This is a description of their philosophy, we believe in constitutional government, fiscal prudence, sound monetary policies, clearly delineated borders, protection civil liberties, authentic free markets, and restraint and in Foreign Policy mixed with diplomatic acuity. We appear closely to our institutional maxim, he has a radiology principles over the party. One could wish that there were more of that kind of true conservatives and wandering around, then some who profess to be conservative. Hes also the author of books on those ultimate journalistic insiders, hes written in the stands of empire, and analysis, and also something that we implemented for american Foreign Policy. Unilaterally, a country with best designs, rehabilitation of james poll, president james poke, and now president mckinley, architect for the american century. Both polk and mckinley he makes the case for their importance in the expansion of the american poke, in the geographical sense of extending our boundaries further than anyone other than Thomas Jefferson in the louisiana approaches. And mckinley, the non colonial imperialism i quote, that did bring Us Geographical expansion in the annexation of hawaii, in the acquisition of puerto rico but more importantly, the extension of American Power concern and engagement as a world power, manifested in the spanish american war, the battles in cuba and the battles in the philippines. With the control over cuba in the philippines, for a very good time. The overboard in china and the vast expansion of the american economy. Polk has been called a most successful president , he incorporated california, oregon, texas, and reinstated the independent treasury, you can see me after class to explain that one. Were all accomplished, hes the only president who sees entire Program Within the law. Hes also called one of her most morally degrading because of the shenanigans associated with the mexican war, which made part of that program possible. Robert marry sides with the diagnosis of success for politician. With mckinley he gives us a more subtle place, just perhaps as important, to get the United States a new place in the international stage. The only stated program for the mckinley campaign for president , was on tariff. With which he was more than anyone else identified the high tariff historians have had a hard time concerning the foreign policies, but he makes a strong case that he was a guy who won empire. And it wasnt, large or roosevelt or, john hey but the deliberately. This book is a continuation of ongoing effort of robert married to adverse to trend of contemporary academics to, i quote him, devour our heritage through anachronistic moralizing from the safe distance of your tower. As such he was an architect of the american century, ladies and gentlemen, rubber mary. Thank you very much. It is a pleasure to be here and its a great pleasure to see all of you here. This is actually my third time at this library that ive spoken and ive spoken out a lemmer of libraries. Not my first time i heard, some recognitions on that he didnt mean to. So i entitled my introduction, to this volume on mckinley the mystery of mckinley. And i was pleased to see the lawsuit journal pick up on that in writing a headline over ancient view of my book, which by the way was very favorable, thats my effort to emulate donald trump. And i have to say that i didnt set out to solve the mystery of ron mckinley that i didnt really know that there was a mystery, i didnt understand mckinley well enough when i started this project. So i understand that theres something strange, something mysterious about him, and it can be explain perhaps into sentences. Which has given all the consequential things that happened, on this president ial watch, why does he know ride as high in americas historical consciousness of today . To put another way, given the fact that he was such a non flamboyant, undramatic personage, how did all those consequential things happen . On this presidency . So as i got into the project, i have to say that the guy started driving 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, i had a hard time bringing this to life. The historical consensus on him was yeah, ok, big things happened on his, watch but he didnt have anything to do with it, he is just president. And that didnt strike me as being totally credible, thats what i call a lymph in the wind theory, of mckinley. An example is a book by Alan Lichtman and canada cell, 13 keys of the presidency which is not a very good book, its not just about mckinley, but about his works. They have a chapter on mckinley, and they write that he enjoyed, quote, one of the most successful incumbent sees in American History. But then the ad that he found himself, quote, benefiting in part from circumstances beyond his control. Beyond his control, he was seen as a less than the sum of his deeds. What struck me also, was in the economic polls, which i have written about and talked about here in this hall, some years ago. That, in those polls he comes in, not exactly in sort of middle average, maybe upper average. He comes in at 16, 15, maybe 14th occasionally. Often, hes below an distinguished or failed president s, just like arthur, whos a caretaker president. Ill wait to get, and given his broad crown with the machine in new york, but nevertheless take care caretaker president. A president who is a failed president , who presided over a terrible recession, depression, that he could not control. Rutherford hage, who became president on the basis of one of the great storm elections of our history. Cleveland, who was one of the only president s who serve two consecutive terms, he was rejected by his party, after it. Thus making him the only two time one term president in our history. And john quincy adams, who was swept away, in the populist wave at the behest of andrew jackson. So, the mystery deepens when you think about, what happened on his watch. And i urge you, to not think about what im about to take off, to just bullet points on a piece of paper. But think about the political drama, many of these things. Well, he led the world in 1998, and then of being a huge success, it was a threemonth war. Would destroy the spanish empire, essentially, in the process we destroyed two spanish fleets, the atlantic in the pacific fleets. We became an empire, by acquiring from spain, puerto rico, guam and the philippines. We liberated cuba in the caribbean. We couldve kept it also, but we had committed that we wouldnt. He kicked spain out of the caribbean and turned the caribbean into an american like. For good measure, he acquired hawaii through nugget negotiation and annexation. He set in motion the events that led eventually, i saw the display outside, to the panama canal. And pr gets an awful lot of credit for that, and he deserves it, but it was really mckinley who reversed the policy of his predecessor, cleveland, who was an anti expansionist and said no, were going to move on this canal and set in motion the studies in the actions and the planning that led to the canal. You 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 the concept of trade reciprocity which, when i was covering trade reciprocity in the 19 eighties when it was a hot issue for the boston journal, reciprocity was really what was then called sort of fair trade. Make it even so that we can have these exchange of goods back and forth across the borders. He crafted the concept of non colonial imperialism, which i believe ultimately was picked up by Franklin Roosevelt when he was transforming the world through world war ii and putting america at the center of it. There was under his watch that we established a special relationship with britain. Just a previous couple of years earlier under the cleveland administration, we almost went to war with britain over a silly border dispute in south america. But after that, we never ever had anything like that in terms of tensions with Great Britain because of the special relationship. He created the strict Gold Standard. We tend to look down on the Gold Standard 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. He essentially solved that in his first term. This is a big collection of accomplishments, or a developments, that occurred under his watch. The question is, to what extent does he deserve the credit . I myself came to conclude that the idea, the leaf in the wind theory, was a myth. I set out to expose that mitt in this book. I will let you decide whether i succeed in that and im happy to do that because you cant decide unless you buy the book. So who was this man . Born in 1843, he was the seventh of nine children, eight of whom lived to adulthood. He grew up in ohio, a small town in ohio. Imbued with what you might call the ohio culture of the time, which was a reflection of what people of those times considered christian values. Modesty, hoyle. His father ran and own blast furnaces. He worked very hard. His mother had a strong sense of civic and religious duty. She was a very civic minded she worked very hard for her church and her community. They were in poland for the most of the growing appears of william. The mother also was imbued with all of those things that ive just talked about, those socalled christian values. One of my favorite stories about her was she took a train to columbus, later in her life, to visit her son, the governor of ohio, a lady next to her struck up a conversation, are you going to columbus . Yes, i am, she said. Oh, do you have family their . I have a son there. Thats all she said. She did not feel any need to explain that her son was the governor of the state. So at 17, Young William mckinley goes off to college in pennsylvania. In the first year, he developed some kind of been illness, and ailment that was never quite explained or understood what it was. But he had to return to poland where he recuperated, but by the time he recuperated he could not 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. He was a schoolteacher, 17 and a timer 18, and he was a postal clerk. Then comes the civil war. I cant say that he enlisted immediately. He gave himself two days to think it over and to sort of think figure out with his cousin whether this was the right thing to do. His family was very, very strong abolitionists, his mother particularly. She subscribe to lure us gurleys weekly tribune which you could get in the mail and in reinforcement that sentiment. He and his cousin, william osborne, decided in about a day and a half that they could not stay out of the war in the enlisted. He had, i think i could accurately described as a Pretty Amazing war record. He entered as a 18yearold private. Immediately, his commanding officer, rutherford behaves, later president , and a great mentor of him, but rather for pace was an officer and became a general and was wounded five times in the war. He became a congressman and became governor and then became president. Hayes saw that this young man had a remarkable organizational ability. So he made him a sergeant and made him quartermaster sergeant. So he was sort of taking care of supplies. At the battle of antietam, the single most bloody they a battle in our history, he was two miles behind the lines because his job was to provide provisions, and he heard about a unit that had gotten caught, trapped essentially, in the area of the battle that they couldnt, they could move, they can get out, nobody could get in to help them. They were starving and they had run out of water. The battle began very early in the morning, so they had not had breakfast. Now its late afternoon, they had not had lunch, and they had run out of water well before noon. So these troops were in extremists. Young mckinley concocted the idea of loading up a wagon with hard tack and some bread and some coffee and water and a few other things and getting that wag into these troops. Well, hed have to go right 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, cannonballs overhead and the back of the wagon was shut away, but they managed to get the provisions to these troops. God bless the lads, said one of the old grisly veterans. He immediately, as a result of that, was promoted to a commission. He became lieutenant. Then, i wont go into all of them, but he had other expenses somewhat like that in which he put himself very directly in harms way, almost always voluntarily. And each time he got another promotion. So he ended the war as a major, but 22yearold rabbit major. So he goes back to poland and decides he wants to become a lawyer and he wants to run for Congress Like his mentor, rutherford hayes. But he sends a letter. A kind of starryeyed letter to hayes telling him this is what he wants to do. Basically what you did, sir. Hayes writes him back and says, yeah thats pretty good, but you know, frankly, with all this industrialization going on, i think maybe you should go into business. You could become a wealthy man by age 40 and really take care of your life. Mckinley carefully preserved a letter, but he discarded the advice. He knew what he wanted. So he moves to canton, ohio where his sister had become a schoolteacher. After he becomes a lawyer and hangs out a shingle and becomes a civic leader in canton. He joined everything. He joined veterans groups. He joined the church. He joined the chamber of commerce. 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. 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. I write, the civil war transformed Young William akin lee much as his fathers white hot for just transformed true iron into and gets a pick arent 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 after being severely questioned in questions of intellect, administrative ability, leadership encourage. He had passed these tests and demonstrated that men gravitated naturally to his side and that many older women were drawn into roles of salute this mentorship. And yet this new confidence and sense of self settled upon him softly, without obstetrician or bravado. It messed with the simplicity of temperament to produce a demeanor of heavy quite. He learned the power of mystique, of leaving and said that which did not need explicit expression, as to keeping people guessing as to his intentions or motive. If this lets some to underestimate his intellect or resolve, he did not seem bothered by it. Lets emerged some of the enigmatic elements of his persona, a congenial and easygoing demeanor shrouding in increasingly restless ambition. So he does run for congress. He becomes a congressman inserts 14 years. He becomes chairman of the ways and Means Committee where he is in position to push his pet issue, tariffs. Protectionism. High trade tariffs to protect American Manufacturing and agricultural eventually at a time when america was burgeoning as a productive machine. As chairman of the ways and means, he even craft a bill, a very high tariff bill, the mckinley tariff they called it, of 1890. It turned out to be a bad move. The tariff didnt go into effect for quite some time and a lot of businesses took the opportunity to raise prices because they were going to raise them anyway everyone figured. The American People did not like that very much and the result was a disaster for republicans in the 1890 elections. Poor mckinley is sitting in his office as the returns are coming in, disheveled with the office messed up with postage everywhere in papers and buttons. Hes sitting there smoking a cigar and in walks his good friend the editor of the newspaper. Editors says, its all over. It can lee says nothing. What am i going to say the newspaper . Mckinley sort of looked up and says, in the time of darkest travel, victory is nearest. He just cannot get pessimistic about anything. It was impossible for him. He lost his seat, but then a year later he runs for governor and serves to two year terms. Now he is ready to run for president of the United States. He begins his campaign in 1895. He sends his good friend and a man who served him so well, mark hanna, 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 plaid of new york who basically owned. They had all the patronage. He wanted to know if them and their lesser bosses who worked under them, if they would support mckinley. Because if they did, he was a front runner anyway. He probably had the nomination sewed up. It