WILLIAM MCKINLEY William McKinley was born at Niles, Trumbull County, Ohio, January 29, 1844. He received his early education at the schools of his town and at the age of seventeen became a soldier in the army of the Union. He served throughout the war with the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer infantry regiment, and was mustered out as Captain and brevet Major. He then began the study of law, and was admitted to the bar and elected prosecuting attorney of Stark County in 1869. His career in national politics begins with his election to the Forty-fifth Congress. During his terms in Congress he studied closely the needs of American labor and the conditions to which it must be conformed in order to develop American industries. He has been identified more with the practical than with the theoretical side of politics. The tariff and its collateral issues have always been his strong points. He made a thorough and exhaustive study of the tariff in all its phases, considering this the most vital economical question likely to affect the welfare of the country in the future. In 1888 McKinley led the Ohio delegation to the Republican national convention with instructions to vote for John Sherman as nominee for President. McKinley's unselfish and loyal conduct in this connection did much to increase his popularity and to establish a reputation for scrupulous integrity with his party. Under President Harrison's administration the tariff question in Congress was placed in his hands, and as a result the McKinley Bill, named after its author, originated, and later became a law. The tariff thus established was highly protective and in many instances entirely prohibitive; the new law, besides, placed arbitrary powers in the hands of the chief executive in its administration. It met with a storm of criticism and reprobation in the most unexpected quarters, resulting in a great Democratic victory in 1890, McKinley himself being defeated as a candidate for re-election to Congress. Yet, after the reaction set in, McKinley was elected Governor of his State in 1891, following an exciting campaign. At the national convention of the Republican party, held in Chicago in 1896, Governor McKinley received the presidential nomination of his party. He was elected and duly inaugurated as President of the United States on March 4, 1897. His administration will go down in history as one of the most remarkable and most important in the annals of the country. The patient statesmanship and far-sighted prudence with which McKinley met the crisis in our dealings with Spain and the swift and decisive blow by which he rescued the people of Cuba from oppression have won him a high place in the annals of American history. By his sympathetic nature, his tact, his political sagacity, and by his large and genuine patriotism President McKinley has endeared himself to a vast number of his countrymen. His Inaugural Address" outlines his policy as President. INAUGURAL ADDRESS Delivered at Washington, March 4, 1897 ELLOW-CITIZENS: In obedience to the will of the FE people and in their presence, by the authority vested in me by this oath, I assume the arduous and responsible duties of President of the United States, relying on the support of my countrymen and invoking the guidance of Almighty God. Our faith teaches that there is no safer reliance than upon the God of our fathers, who has so singularly favored the American people in every national trial, and who will not forsake us so long as we obey his commandments and walk humbly in his footsteps. The responsibilities of the high trust to which I have been called-always of grave importance-are augmented by the prevailing business conditions, entailing idleness upon willing labor and loss to useful enterprises. The country is suffering from industrial disturbances from which speedy relief must be had. Our financial system needs some revision. Our money is all good now, but its value must not further be threatened. It should all be put upon an enduring basis, not subject to easy attack, nor its stability to doubt or dispute. Our currency should continue under the supervision of the government. The several forms of our paper money offer, in my judgment, a constant embarrassment to the government and a safe balance in the Treasury. Therefore I believe it necessary to devise a system which, without diminishing the circulating medium, or offering a premium for its contraction, will present a remedy for those arrangements which, temporary in their nature, might well in the years of our prosperity have been displaced by wiser provisions. With adequate revenue secured, but not until then, we can enter upon such changes in our fiscal laws as will, while ensuring safety and volume to our money, no longer impose upon the government the necessity of maintaining so large a gold reserve, with its attendant and inevitable temptations to speculation. Most of our financial laws are the outgrowth of experience and trial, and should not be amended without investigation and demonstration of the wisdom of the proposed changes. We must be both sure we are right " and " make haste slowly." If, therefore, Congress in its wisdom shall deem it expedient to create a commission to take under early consideration the revision of our coinage, banking and currency laws, and give them that exhaustive, careful, and dispassionate examination that their importance demands, I shall cordially concur in such action. If such power is vested in the President, it is my purpose to appoint a commission of prominent, well-informed citizens of different parties, who will command public confidence both on account of their ability and special fitness for the work. Business experience and public training may thus be combined, and the patriotic zeal of the friends of the country be so directed that such a report will be made as to receive the support of all parties, and our finances cease to be the subject of mere partisan contention. The experiment is, at all events, worth a trial, and, in my opinion, it can but prove beneficial to the entire country. The question of international bimetallism will have early and earnest attention. It will be my constant endeavor to secure it by co-operation with the other great commercial powers of the world. Until that condition is realized when the parity between our gold and silver money springs from and is supported by the relative value of the two metals, the value of the silver already coined and of that which may hereafter be coined must be kept constantly at par with gold by every resource at our command. The credit of the government, the integrity of its currency and the inviolability of its obligations must be preserved. This was the commanding verdict of the people, and it will not be unheeded. Economy is demanded in every branch of the government at all times, but especially in periods like the present of de |