CHAPTER XXVIII.

PRESIDENT WILLIAM MCKINLEY (Concluded).

WHEN the National Republican Convention met in Philadelphia, on June 19, 1900, there was no doubt as to who would be nominated for President. William McKinley had served his country well in times of many difficulties, he had grown in the estimation of the nation, his hands were clean, no word during his entire term had been uttered against his personal character, and, as has ever been the custom when the President has served his country faithfully and well, the Republicans had decided to renominate him for the Presidency. Apart from this there were other reasons why it was fitting that he should continue in the White House. Great questions had arisen during the last four years, the nation had just passed through a trying and costly war, and there was still much to be done to clear up the situation occasioned by this war. What should be done with Cuba had yet to be considered, and the course to be followed in the Philippines had not been fully and finally decided upon. It would have been as unwise to allow President McKinley to retire into private life in 1900, as it would have been to have rejected the renomination of Abraham Lincoln in 1864, when the great Civil war was still unfinished.

The two great questions that were at this time agitating the nation were the Trusts and the Imperial Policy of the United States. The government had firmly decided to keep faith with Cuba and to grant the island independence. It was otherwise with the Philippines. They were not fit for independence. It would be necessary first to go through the slow process of civilising them.

The question of imperialism and the great trade question were really the only things agitating the nation at this time. The silver issue which had played such an important part in the previous Presidential campaign was on this occasion more or less of a side issue.

The temporary chairman of the Philadelphia Convention, Senator Wolcott, admirably stated the position of his country when he said: Our way is new, but it is dark. In the readjustment of world conditions, where we must take our place with the other great nations of the earth, we shall move with caution, but not with fear. We seek only to lift up men to better things, to bless and not to destroy. The fathers of the Republic accepted with courage such responsibility as devolved upon them. The same heavens bend over us, and the same power that shielded them will guard and protect us, for what we seek is to build still more firmly, always upon foundations of probity and virtue, the glorious edifice of the Republic."

Vague as these words are they very adequately state the position of the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century. Her way is truly new, and it is dark; but of one thing mankind can be assured that from the high state of civilisation she herself has attained, she is in a fitter condition than

any of the other Powers to take up "the white man's burden," to extend her imperial sway, and to civilise and Christianise the world. It was fitting that at a period when she was beginning a new epoch in her history a man of integrity, wisdom and power should be at her head, a man who had surrounded himself with wise councillors.

The following was the platform of the Republican Party as stated in a late life of President McKinley: The party endorsed President McKinley's administration; asserted its allegiance to the gold standard and its steadfast opposition to the free coinage of silver; condemned conspiracies and combinations to restrict business; reaffirmed its policy of protection and reciprocity; declared for more effective restriction of immigration of cheap labour; and upheld civil service reform.

"It declared that there would be no discrimination on account of race or colour; stood for good roads, rural free delivery, free homes and reclamation of arid lands; favoured Statehood for New Mexico, Arizona, and Oklahoma; promised reduction of war taxes; declared for an Isthmian Canal and an open door in China; congratulated women on their work in camp and hospital; reaffirmed the Monroe Doctrine; approved the tender of good offices to end the war in South Africa; and promised restoration of order and establishment of self-government in the Philippines, and independence to Cuba."

At this Convention there was for a time some little doubt about who would receive the nomination for the Vice-Presidency; however, all doubt vanished when the name of Theodore Roosevelt, who was at once a popular hero and an experienced administrator, was brought forward. There was none of the

usual delay in coming to a decision, and there was an entire absence of the tedious balloting that had marked previous conventions. For the first time in the history of the United States, the President and Vice-President were nominated on the first ballot.

Under the guidance of Senator Hanna President McKinley decided to adopt the tactics during the campaign, which he had adopted four years before,— to remain quietly at his home in Canton during the heat of the fight. His record was before the nation, he was now thoroughly known, and on his record and his policy he would stand. Hanna voiced his attitude when he said at the Convention : "Our appeal, and it need not be an appeal-still less a defense-is to sober common sense as against visions; to what is, and is satisfactory, as against what may be, and may be disastrous; to present prosperity, as against probable panic; to what has been tried and found true, as against what is untried and likely to be found wanting-in short to the sanity of the nation."

It was otherwise with William J. Bryan, the nominee of the Democratic party. He was a silvertongued orator; he knew that his vigorous speechmaking four years before had won him many votes, and so he once more took to the stump. He could not altogether drop the Free Silver movement-the Western influence was too strong for that, but he concentrated himself on criticising the government's imperial policy, endeavouring to gain the alien votes by championing the cause of the Boers, and particularly by blaming the administration for the rapid growth of trusts and combines. The nation, however, was too sane to reject a tried man and proved, for one who was untried and who was guilty of considerable extravagance of speech. It listened with a great

deal of pleasure to his rhetorical harangues, but gave a substantial majority at the election to President McKinley. The Republicans carried twenty-eight States with 219 electoral votes, and had besides a fair majority of the popular vote.

President McKinley was to see the nineteenth century out and the twentieth century in. During the hundred years which had just passed his country had made greater progress than any other country in the world. At the beginning of the nineteenth century it had a population of but little over 5,000,000, it had now over 76,000,000. It was, as Senator Hoar said, "by far the richest country in the world." It was richer than any of the great Powers, and there was within its borders an intellectual life and activity that excelled anything on the European continent,not that its higher educational institutions were superior to the institutions of Germany and England, but the wide diffusion of learning made intellectual life general, whereas in Europe, for the most part, it was confined to the upper and the well-to-do classes. The outlook for the twentieth century was even broader than it had been in the past, and no better man could have been selected to open the century than William McKinley. He was a great opportunist, watching the tide of time and going with the

current.

Shortly after his inauguration he decided to make an extended tour through the nation. His country was rich, prosperous and happy, but it was not the unit he would like to see it. There was still a wall of prejudice existing between North and South, and the hope of his life was that he might see this wall broken down. During his first term he had seized every opportunity to create a spirit of friendship