William McKinley was born in Ohio on 29 January 1843
as the seventh of nine children.
A move provided a better school in 1852.
His parents were religious Methodists,
and William was baptized at a camp meeting in 1858.
He graduated from the Poland Academy in 1859
and entered Allegheny College in Pennsylvania,
and he became ill and went home after one year.
He worked as a postal clerk and taught school.
The McKinleys were strong abolitionists, and on 11 June 1861
William enlisted for three years in the Union Army as a private.
He admired Major Rutherford B. Hayes, became a
commissary sergeant, and was wounded in a battle.
During the battle at Antietam he took hot food and coffee to troops on the front line,
and Hayes promoted him to second lieutenant.
After McKinley showed his bravery as a messenger, he was made a captain.
He studied law and became a Freemason.
After the battle at Cedar Creek in October 1864
McKinley was promoted to a brevet major without the pay increase.
He began studying with an attorney, and in September 1866
he went to Albany Law School in New York for one term.
He passed the Ohio bar exam in March 1867, and that year
he campaigned for the Republican Hayes who was elected Governor of Ohio.
McKinley also supported General Grant for President in 1868
by organizing Grant Clubs and rallies.
In 1869 McKinley was elected the prosecuting attorney for Stark County.
By enforcing the liquor laws he prevented saloon-keepers
from selling alcohol to college students, and he was not re-elected.
He impressed Ida Saxton when as the YMCA president he introduced Horace Greeley.
He married Ida in January 1871.
Their two daughters had died by 1875,
and Ida suffered from depression and other health problems.
In the spring of 1876 McKinley defended 23 striking coal miners
on various charges, and the jury acquitted 22 of them.
In October he was elected to Congress from Canton, Ohio,
and he advised President-elect Hayes on appointments.
In 1878 McKinley voted for the government purchasing silver,
and President Hayes vetoed the bill.
McKinley advocated protective tariffs that aided the manufacturing of farm equipment,
and he was re-elected in 1880 and replaced President-elect Garfield
on the Ways and Means Committee.
He lost a contested election in 1882 as Democrats made gains.
McKinley won again in the next three Congressional elections.
In a speech on 1 October 1885 at Ironton, Ohio he estimated that
5 million blacks, who were 41% of the population in the South,
were not allowed to vote and were not represented.
At the 1888 Republican convention McKinley
supported Senator John Sherman of Ohio.
When Sherman’s votes declined, McKinley told the convention that
he would not consent to having his name be used as a candidate.
Hayes advised McKinley to become a specialist on tariffs,
and he became an expert and chairman of the
House Ways and Means Committee on 4 March 1889.
He proposed reducing the annual $60 million surplus by $10 million
by repealing the domestic excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol.
The McKinley tariff bill, which he called “an act to reduce the revenue,”
would eliminate all duties on sugar,
and Senators ruined the bill by adding 496 amendments that increased the duties.
He claimed that 29 years of protective tariffs enabled the United States
to lead all the nations in agriculture, mining, and manufacturing.
In the election for Speaker of the House on 4 December 1889
McKinley came in second to the Republican Thomas Reed of Maine.
Americans began suffering an economic recession in 1890.
Representative Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts in March
introduced a bill that would allow 100 voters in a district to contest
a congressional election, and southerners called it a “force bill.”
McKinley believed that their black allies must not be forsaken
and that they should have their constitutional rights.
He supported the Lodge bill and opposed an amendment by
Rep. John Hemphill of South Carolina that would take away
the President’s power to enforce voting rights,
saying that “the conscience of the American people will not be permitted to slumber
until this great constitutional right—the equality of suffrage” is “a living birthright.”
He warned, “The people of the North will not continue to permit two votes
to the South to count as much as five notes in the North.”1
After the Civil War the emancipation of black citizens had given
the South 37 more seats in Congress and 37 more Electoral College votes.
If they denied blacks the vote, southern whites
would have even more power than they had during slavery.
In 1890 Democrats gerrymandered McKinley’s district
so that they had 3,000 more Democrats than Republicans.
Yet they defeated his re-election by only 302 votes out of 39,816.
In the House of Representatives the Democrats replaced the
“Billion-Dollar Congress” and gained 86 seats
to give them a 238-93 dominance over Republicans.
In March 1891 McKinley went to the home of the former
Republican Governor Joseph Foraker of Ohio and asked him
to nominate him for governor at the convention in June at Columbus.
Foraker spoke so well that the delegates nominated McKinley by acclamation.
The incumbent Democrat Gov. James Campbell was for more silver coinage.
McKinley was for bimetallism balancing gold and silver,
but his supporting the 1890 Sherman Silver Purchase Act
had disastrous results for the government’s gold reserves.
He agreed with Cleveland on the “double standard” of gold and silver.
McKinley campaigned in 84 of Ohio’s 88 counties.
The political operative Mark Hanna raised money for his campaign,
and McKinley defeated Campbell in November 1891 by 21,511 votes.
Republicans were double the Democrats in the state legislature.
McKinley planned to improve conditions to make railroad workers safer,
and he wanted to revive the deteriorating canals in Ohio.
The majority Republicans in the state legislature passed all
of McKinley’s policies in the next two years.
The Republican National Convention met at Minneapolis in June 1892,
and delegates unanimously chose McKinley as permanent chairman of the convention.
On the first ballot the incumbent President Harrison was nominated
with 535 votes while James Blaine received 183.
Ohio gave all their votes to McKinley despite his objection, and he had 182 votes.
Hanna arranged a national tour enabling McKinley to speak in support of Harrison,
and he visited nine states in the North and West from Pennsylvania to Colorado.
The former President Cleveland defeated President Harrison by 372,639 votes,
and the Republicans also lost nine seats in the Senate.
After having lost 85 seats in 1890 the Republicans regained 38 in the House in 1892.
In February 1893 McKinley learned that his old friend Robert L. Walker,
who had asked him to guarantee many of his loans, was on the verge of bankruptcy.
McKinley recalled co-signing loans for $17,000,
and his patron Myron Herrick eventually informed McKinley
that his share of the debt was about $130,000.
Friends and supporters of McKinley began contributing
various amounts including $40,000 from Chicago.
His wife Ida was willing to turn over her property that was worth about $75,000,
and they decided to keep that in reserve in case it was needed.
Herrick persuaded the banks to discount the debts by 10%.
During the fall elections McKinley gave 371 speeches
as he traveled through seventeen states.
In November 1893 he was re-elected governor by about 81,000 votes.
That helped Republicans gain 110 seats in the House of Representatives.
In April 1894 about 200,000 coal miners in Ohio walked off their jobs
in one of the largest strikes that also affected Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Illinois.
Local sheriffs in Ohio asked for troops, and McKinley sent 3,000 militia
to suppress the violence in the five eastern counties.
After the strike ended, he arranged for funds and provisions
to help miners and others suffering from the strike.
In his second term 2-year term Gov. McKinley
made Ohio taxes more progressive and improved civil rights.
Young black William Dolby had been accused of assaulting a white woman,
and a mob of over a thousand people gathered outside.
On October 18 McKinley dispatched the National Guard to protect him.
When they broke into the courthouse, seven people were killed.
Many blamed the soldiers instead of the mob.
McKinley announced,
Lynching cannot be tolerated in Ohio.
The law of the state must be supreme …
and the agents of the law, acting within the law,
must be sustained.2
His last act as Governor of Ohio was to sign an anti-lynching bill.
Mark Hanna rented a home in Thomasville, Georgia
and invited McKinley and his wife Ida.
Although they did not expect to win southern states in the election,
they could gain many Republican delegates from there to help him get the nomination.
Early in 1895 McKinley traveled with Hanna to Georgia, Florida, the Carolinas,
and Virginia to persuade Republicans and black leaders to support McKinley,
and at the 1896 convention McKinley would get 197 of the 225 votes
from the South on the first ballot.
Mark Hanna in May 1895 went to New York on behalf of McKinley’s candidacy
to meet with the Republican political bosses in the northeast.
The most powerful were the former Senator Tom Platt of New York,
two former chairmen of the Republican National Committee:
Pennsylvania’s Senator Matthew Quay and James S. Clarkson of Iowa
as well as the current chairman Joseph H. Manley of Maine
and Rhode Island’s Senator Nelson Aldrich.
They wanted a Republican president who would grant them patronage.
Hanna told McKinley that Platt wanted to be guaranteed in writing
that he would be Treasury Secretary
because President Benjamin Harrison had not kept that promise.
Hanna suggested that McKinley recognize their requests
in order to get the nomination and then not accept them.
McKinley refused to do that, saying, “If I cannot be President without promising
to make Tom Platt Secretary of the Treasury, I will never be President.”3
Hanna agreed with his candidate, and they adopted the slogan,
“The People Against the Bosses.”
They planned a six-month campaign to win delegates in the state conventions.
Hanna ran the campaign at the headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio.
The depression started by the Panic of 1893 brought about 15% unemployment.
Hanna in August met at his home in Cleveland with the
former governors William Merriam of Minnesota and Russell Alger of Michigan.
On 4 February 1896 Benjamin Harrison told Indiana’s Republican chairman
John Gowdy that he was not going to run again.
McKinley called Charles Dick in Akron and sent him to “take up the Indiana situation.”
Young Charles G. Dawes volunteered to work for McKinley,
and he managed the McKinley campaign in Illinois where state convention
delegates overcame those backing their U. S. Senator Shelby Cullom.
McKinley made a speech in Chicago on Lincoln’s birthday,
and he criticized the “debt-increasing, bond-issuing, gold-depleting, labor-destroying,
low tariff polices” of the Cleveland Administration.
On March 10 the Ohio state Republican convention endorsed McKinley for President.
Quay visited McKinley at Canton on May 22,
and he declared that Major McKinley “is sound on the money question.”
The Republican National Convention began in St. Louis on June 16.
The platform advocated a free Cuba, and the McKinley draft was that
he would not do anything “to debase our currency or disturb our credit.”
They also proposed,
It is the plain duty of the United States to maintain
our present standard, and we are therefore
opposed under existing conditions to the free
and unlimited coinage of silver at sixteen to one.4
The Resolutions Committee approved the McKinley gold plank by a vote of 40-11.
Senator Henry Teller of Colorado and other westerners wanted to replace that
with a free-silver plank, and that was defeated 105-818.
Then Teller and two dozen delegates walked out.
The former Ohio Republican Governor Joseph Foraker made the nominating speech.
When he mentioned McKinley’s name, the delegates cheered for about a half hour.
He won on the first ballot with 661 votes to 84 for House Speaker Thomas Reed,
61 for Senator Quay of Pennsylvania, and 58 for Gov. Levi Morton of New York.
Hanna did not want to reward Platt by selecting Morton for Vice President,
and McKinley chose Garret Hobart of New Jersey.
Hanna became the new Chairman of the Republican National Committee.
At the Democrats’ convention in Chicago on July 7-11 they advocated
unlimited coinage of silver and gold at a ratio of 16 to 1,
government regulating trusts and railroads, and a more effective Interstate
Commerce Commission while they opposed the protective tariff and the
Supreme Court’s ruling that a federal income tax was unconstitutional.
McKinley expected that Rep. Richard Bland of Missouri would be nominated,
but Dawes predicted that if William Jennings Bryan was allowed to speak there,
they would choose him.
Bryan gave the last speech during the platform debate on July 9,
and he noted that Republicans had nominated McKinley
who advocated maintaining the gold standard.
He compared the Democrats’ economics to the Republicans’
which later came to be known as the “trickle down” theory.
Bryan said,
There are two ideas of government.
There are those who believe that,
if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous,
that their prosperity will leak through on those below.
The Democratic idea, however, has been that
if you legislate to make the masses prosperous,
their prosperity will find its way up
and through every class which rests upon them.5
They cheered him for a half hour after he concluded with the following:
If they dare to come out in the open field
and defend the gold standard as a good thing,
we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us
the producing masses of the nation and the world.
Having behind us the commercial interests
and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses,
we shall answer their demands for a gold standard
by saying to them, you shall not press down
upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns.
You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.6
Bland led on the first ballot, and on the fifth ballot Bryan gained
well over the two-thirds needed for the Democratic nomination.
The former railroad president Arthur Sewall of Maine
was also nominated on the 5th ballot for Vice President.
Mark Hanna devoted himself to raising money in New York,
and he appointed Charles Dawes to run the campaign in Chicago.
Dawes distributed about 100 million articles during the campaign to 15 million voters
while Hanna sent out 20 million pieces of literature in the northeast.
Silver was the main issue for many, and their 40-page article on that was popular.
They also distributed about 3 million articles to newspapers each week.
This campaign spent $3,562,326 which was twice
what the former President Harrison had in 1892.
Hanna asked the wealthy for 2% of their annual incomes.
They received $250,000 from the Standard Oil Company
and $2,500 from John D. Rockefeller, $250,000 from J. P. Morgan,
$174,000 from some railroad companies, $41,000 from Chicago meatpacking firms,
and $50,000 from the New York Life Insurance Company
which usually gave to Democrats.
Bryan traveled about 18,000 miles in 29 states and gave 570 speeches,
and the Democrats raised only about $300,000 for his campaign.
In July the People’s Party met at St. Louis and nominated Bryan
with Tom Watson of Georgia as a running mate
instead of Sewall which complicated those ballots.
On July 25 the Silver Party nominated Bryan and Sewall.
The National Democratic Party, who were called
“Gold Democrats,” nominated John Palmer.
That party and the Prohibition Party with Joshua Levering
each got just under 1% of the popular vote.
McKinley had decided he would not go on a tour to make speeches.
Instead he stayed home in Canton with his wife Ida,
and he spoke about a dozen times each day
on their front porch to large groups that visited.
An estimated 750,000 people came from thirty states.
His speeches were also sent out to newspapers.
McKinley in August criticized the Democrats for advocating free silver
and free trade instead of the gold standard and the protective tariff.
On August 23 he told about 500 farmers that free silver would not remove
their competition against wheat from Russia, India, and the Argentine Republic.
In October wheat prices rose because of poor crops in India, Russia, and Australia.
The total number of votes on November 3 was 13,936,957
which was nearly 80% of the eligible voters.
The number of votes for the President increased in each election from 1828 to 1908.
McKinley was the first person to get over 50% of the votes since Grant in 1872.
He had 51% with 7,112,138 votes to 6,510,807 for Bryan.
McKinley won 23 states with all the northeastern and midwestern states
except Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota,
plus Kentucky, California, and Oregon.
Bryan got 22 states which included all the southern states
along with Missouri and the rest of the western states.
McKinley won the Electoral College 271-176.
Bryan was the first U. S. presidential candidate to congratulate the winner
with a telegram, beginning the tradition of conceding to the winner.
President-elect McKinley was very grateful to Mark Hanna
for helping him get nominated and elected,
and he learned that Hanna wanted to be a senator rather than in the cabinet.
Hanna suggested the President make Senator John Sherman the Secretary of State
so that Ohio’s Gov. Asa Bushnell could replace Sherman
by appointing Hanna, and that eventually worked out.
McKinley rejected advice from Tom Platt who had just been elected
as a U. S. Senator from New York.
McKinley made Lyman J. Gage, who was president
of the First National Bank of Chicago, the Treasury Secretary
even though he had become a Gold Democrat to support President Cleveland.
Michigan’s former Gov. Russell Alger became Secretary of War
despite his questionable service as a general in the Civil War.
McKinley chose the former Congressman and current Federal appeals judge
Joseph McKenna of California as the Attorney General.
The former Gov. John D. Long of Massachusetts agreed to be Navy Secretary.
McKinley appointed the former Iowa Congressman James Wilson
as Secretary of Agriculture, and he would stay in that position for 16 years.
Southerners were pleased that the President-elect chose the successful
textile executive James Gary of Maryland as the Postmaster General.
He needed someone from New York and finally named Cornelius Bliss
to be the Interior Secretary on 3 March 1897.
That day McKinley dined at the White House with the President and Mrs. Cleveland,
and they agreed on the gold standard.
Cleveland later recalled,
The one question on McKinley’s mind
was the threatened war with Spain.
He went over with me, carefully,
the steps that I had taken to avert this catastrophe,
emphasized his agreement with the policy adopted
and expressed his determination
to carry it out so far as lay in his power.7
McKinley appointed the experienced John Hay to be the minister to Britain.
Although he was warned that Theodore Roosevelt was pugnacious,
the President gave him the position he wanted as Assistant Navy Secretary.
McKinley appointed several prominent blacks such as Blanche K. Bruce,
who had been a U. S. Senator for Mississippi
and was recommended by Booker T. Washington.
John Campbell Dancy had graduated from Howard University and was
an editor and businessman, and he was given the lucrative position of
collector for the port of Wilmington, North Carolina with a $4,000 annual salary.
McKinley appointed 179 black men to government jobs in his first six months.
About 40,000 people attended the inauguration of
President William McKinley on 4 March 1897, and he made this speech:
Fellow-Citizens:
In obedience to the will of the 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 upon 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
insuring 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 depression in business and distress among the people.
The severest economy must be observed in all public
expenditures, and extravagance stopped wherever it is found,
and prevented wherever in the future it may be developed.
If the revenues are to remain as now, the only relief that
can come must be from decreased expenditures.
But the present must not become the
permanent condition of the Government.
It has been our uniform practice to retire, not increase
our outstanding obligations, and this policy must again
be resumed and vigorously enforced.
Our revenues should always be large enough to meet
with ease and promptness not only our current needs
and the principal and interest of the public debt,
but to make proper and liberal provision for that most
deserving body of public creditors, the soldiers and sailors
and the widows and orphans who are
the pensioners of the United States.
The Government should not be permitted to run behind or
increase its debt in times like the present.
Suitably to provide against this is the mandate of duty--
the certain and easy remedy for most of our financial difficulties.
A deficiency is inevitable so long as the expenditures
of the Government exceed its receipts.
It can only be met by loans or an increased revenue.
While a large annual surplus of revenue may invite waste
and extravagance, inadequate revenue creates distrust
and undermines public and private credit.
Neither should be encouraged.
Between more loans and more revenue there
ought to be but one opinion.
We should have more revenue, and that
without delay, hindrance, or postponement.
A surplus in the Treasury created by loans
is not a permanent or safe reliance.
It will suffice while it lasts, but it can not last long while
the outlays of the Government are greater than its receipts,
as has been the case during the past two years.
Nor must it be forgotten that however much such loans
may temporarily relieve the situation, the Government is
still indebted for the amount of the surplusthus accrued,
which it must ultimately pay, while its ability to pay is not
strengthened, but weakened by a continued deficit.
Loans are imperative in great emergencies to preserve the
Government or its credit, but a failureto supply needed
revenue in time of peace for the maintenance of either
has no justification.
The best way for the Government to maintain its credit is
to pay as it goes--not by resorting to loans, but by
keeping out of debt--through an adequate income secured
by a system of taxation, external or internal, or both.
It is the settled policy of the Government, pursued from the
beginning and practiced by all parties and Administrations,
to raise the bulk of our revenue from taxes upon foreign
productions entering the United States for sale and consumption,
and avoiding, for the most part, every form of direct taxation,
except in time of war.
The country is clearly opposed to any needless additions
to the subject of internal taxation, and is committed by its
latest popular utterance to the system of tariff taxation.
There can be no misunderstanding, either, about the principle
upon which this tariff taxation shall be levied.
Nothing has ever been made plainer at a general election
than that the controlling principle in the raising of revenue
from duties on imports is zealous care for
American interests and American labor.
The people have declared that such legislation should be had
as will give ample protection and encouragement to the
industries and the development of our country.
It is, therefore, earnestly hoped and expected that Congress
will, at the earliest practicable moment, enact revenue
legislation that shall be fair, reasonable, conservative, and just,
and which, while supplying sufficient revenue for public purposes,
will still be signally beneficial and helpful to every section and
every enterprise of the people.
To this policy we are all, of whatever party, firmly bound
by the voice of the people--a power vastly more potential
than the expression of any political platform.
The paramount duty of Congress is to stop deficiencies
by the restoration of that protective legislation which
has always been the firmest prop of the Treasury.
The passage of such a law or laws would strengthen the
credit of the Government both at home and abroad,
and go far toward stopping the drain upon the gold reserve
held for the redemption of our currency, which has been
heavy and well-nigh constant for several years.
In the revision of the tariff especial attention should be
given to the re-enactment and extension of the reciprocity
principle of the law of 1890, under which so great a stimulus
was given to our foreign trade in new and advantageous
markets for our surplus agricultural and manufactured products.
The brief trial given this legislation amply justifies a
further experiment and additional discretionary power in the
making of commercial treaties, the end in view always to be
the opening up of new markets for the products of our country,
by granting concessions to the products of other lands that
we need and cannot produce ourselves, and which do not
involve any loss of labor to our own people,
but tend to increase their employment.
The depression of the past four years has fallen with
especial severity upon the great body of toilers of the
country, and upon none more than the holders of small farms.
Agriculture has languished and labor suffered.
The revival of manufacturing will be a relief to both.
No portion of our population is more devoted to the institution
of free government nor more loyal in their support,
while none bears more cheerfully or fully its proper share
in the maintenance of the Government or is better entitled
to its wise and liberal care and protection.
Legislation helpful to producers is beneficial to all.
The depressed condition of industry on the farm and in the
mine and factory has lessened the ability of the people to
meet the demands upon them, and they rightfully expect
that not only a system of revenue shall be established that
will secure the largest income with the least burden,
but that every means will be taken to decrease,
rather than increase, our public expenditures.
Business conditions are not themost promising.
It will take time to restore the prosperity of former years.
If we cannot promptly attain it, we can resolutely turn our
faces in that direction and aid its return by friendly legislation.
However troublesome the situation may appear,
Congress will not, I am sure, be found lacking in disposition
or ability to relieve it as far as legislation can do so.
The restoration of confidence and the revival of business,
which men of all parties so much desire, depend more largely
upon the prompt, energetic, and intelligent action of Congress
than upon any other single agency affecting the situation.
It is inspiring, too, to remember that no great emergency
in the one hundred and eight years of our eventful
national life has ever arisen that has not been met
with wisdom and courage by the American people,
with fidelity to their best interests and highest destiny,
and to the honor of the American name.
These years of glorious history have exalted mankind
and advanced the cause of freedom throughout the world,
and immeasurably strengthened the precious free
institutions which we enjoy.
The people love and will sustain these institutions.
The great essential to our happiness and prosperity is that
we adhere to the principles upon which the Government was
established and insist upon their faithful observance.
Equality of rights must prevail, and our laws be always
and everywhere respected and obeyed.
We may have failed in the discharge of our full duty as citizens
of the great Republic, but it is consoling and encouraging to
realize that free speech, a free press, free thought,
free schools, the free and unmolested right of religious liberty
and worship, and free and fair elections are dearer and
more universally enjoyed to-day than ever before.
These guaranties must be sacredly
preserved and wisely strengthened.
The constituted authorities must be
cheerfully and vigorously upheld.
Lynchings must not be tolerated in a great and civilized
country like the United States; courts, not mobs,
must execute the penaltiesof the law.
The preservation of public order, the right of discussion,
the integrity of courts, and the orderly administration
of justice must continue forever the rock of safety
upon which our Government securely rests.
One of the lessons taught by the late election, which
all can rejoice in, is that the citizens of the United States
are both law-respecting and law-abiding people,
not easily swerved from the path of patriotism and honor.
This is in entire accord with the genius of our institutions,
and but emphasizes the advantages of inculcating even a
greater love for law and order in the future.
Immunity should be granted to none who violatethe laws,
whether individuals, corporations, or communities;
and as the Constitution imposes upon the President
the duty of both its own execution, and of the statutes
enacted in pursuance of its provisions, I shall endeavor
carefully to carry them into effect.
The declaration of the party now restored to power has been
in the past that of "opposition to all combinations of capital
organized in trusts, or otherwise, to control arbitrarily the
condition of trade among our citizens," and it has supported
"such legislation as will prevent the execution of all schemes to
oppress the people by undue charges on their supplies, or by
unjust rates for the transportation of their products to the market."
This purpose will be steadily pursued, both by the
enforcement of the laws now in existence and the
recommendation and support of such new statutes
as may be necessary to carry it into effect.
Our naturalization and immigration laws should be further
improved to the constant promotion of a safer, a better,
and a higher citizenship.
A grave peril to the Republic would be a citizenship too
ignorant to understand or too vicious to appreciate the
great value andbeneficence of our institutions and laws,
and against all who come here to make war upon them
our gates must be promptly and tightly closed.
Nor must we be unmindful of the need of improvement
among our own citizens, but with the zeal of our forefathers
encourage the spread of knowledge and free education.
Illiteracy must be banished from the land if we shall attain
that high destiny as the foremost of the enlightened nations
of the world which, under Providence, we ought to achieve.
Reforms in the civil service must go on; but the changes should
be real and genuine, not perfunctory, or prompted by a zeal in
behalf of any party simply because it happens to be in power.
As a member of Congress I voted and spoke in favor of the
present law, and I shall attempt its enforcement
in the spirit in which it was enacted.
The purpose in view was to secure the most efficient service
of the best men who would accept appointment under the
Government, retaining faithful and devoted public servants
in office, but shielding none, under the authority of any rule
or custom, who are inefficient, incompetent, or unworthy.
The best interests of the country demand this,
and the people heartily approve the law wherever
and whenever it has been thus administrated.
Congress should give prompt attention to the restoration
of our American merchant marine, once the pride of the
seas in all the great ocean highways of commerce.
To my mind, few more important subjects so
imperatively demand its intelligent consideration.
The United States has progressed with marvelous
rapidity in every field of enterprise and endeavor
until we have become foremost in nearly all the
great lines of inland trade, commerce, and industry.
Yet, while this is true, our American merchant marine
has been steadily declining until it is now lower,
both in the percentage of tonnage and the number
of vessels employed, than it was prior to the Civil War.
Commendable progress has been made of late years
in the upbuilding of the American Navy, but we must
supplement these efforts by providing as a proper
consort for it a merchant marine amply sufficient
for our own carrying trade to foreign countries.
The question is one that appeals both to our business
necessities and the patriotic aspirations of a great people.
It has been the policy of the United States since the
foundation of the Government to cultivate relations of
peace and amity with all the nations of the world,
and this accords with my conception of our duty now.
We have cherished the policy of non-interference with
affairs of foreign governments wisely inaugurated by
Washington, keeping ourselves free from entanglement,
either as allies or foes, content to leave undisturbed
with them the settlement of their own domestic concerns.
It will be our aim to pursue a firm and dignified foreign policy,
which shall be just, impartial, ever watchful of our national
honor, and always insisting upon the enforcement of the
lawful rights of American citizens everywhere.
Our diplomacy should seek nothing more
and accept nothing less than is due us.
We want no wars of conquest; we must avoid
the temptation of territorial aggression.
War should never be entered upon until
every agency of peace has failed;
peace is preferable to war in almost every contingency.
Arbitration is the true method of settlement of international
as well as local or individual differences.
It was recognized as the best means of adjustment of
differences between employers and employees by the
Forty-ninth Congress, in 1886, and its application was
extended to our diplomatic relations by the unanimous
concurrence of the Senate and House
of the Fifty-first Congress in 1890.
The latter resolution was accepted as the basis of negotiations
with us by the British Houseof Commons in 1893, and upon
our invitation a treaty of arbitration between the United States
and Great Britain was signed at Washington and transmitted
to the Senate for its ratification in January last.
Since this treaty is clearly the result of our own initiative;
since it has been recognized as the leading feature of our
foreign policy throughout our entire national history--
the adjustment of difficulties by judicial methods
rather than force of arms--and since it presents to the world
the glorious exampleof reason and peace, not passion and war,
controlling the relations between two of the greatest nations
in the world, an example certain to be followed by others,
I respectfully urge the early action of the Senate thereon,
not merely as a matter of policy, but as a duty to mankind.
The importance and moral influence of the ratification
of such a treaty can hardly be over estimated
in the cause of advancing civilization.
It may well engage the best thought of the statesmen
and people of every country, and I cannot but consider
it fortunate that it was reserved to the United States
to have the leadership in so grand a work.
It has been the uniform practice of each President
to avoid, as far as possible, the convening
of Congress in extraordinary session.
It is an example which, under ordinary circumstances and
in the absence of a public necessity, is to be commended.
But a failure to convene the representatives of the
people in Congress in extra session when it involves
neglect of a public duty places the responsibility of
such neglect upon the Executive himself.
The condition of the public Treasury, as has been indicated,
demands the immediate consideration of Congress.
It alone has the power to provide revenues for the Government.
Not to convene it under such circumstances I can view
in no other sense than the neglect of a plain duty.
I do not sympathize with the sentiment that Congress
in session is dangerous to our general business interests.
Its members are the agents of the people, and their presence
at the seat of Government in the execution of the sovereign
will should not operate as an injury, but a benefit.
There could be no better time to put the Government
upon a sound financial and economic basis than now.
The people have only recently voted that this should
be done, and nothing is more binding upon the agents
of their will than the obligation of immediate action.
It has always seemed to me that the postponement
of the meeting of Congress until more than a year
after it has been chosen deprived Congress too
often of the inspiration of the popular will and
the country of the corresponding benefits.
It is evident, therefore, that to postpone action
in the presence of so great a necessity would be
unwise on the part of the Executive because
unjust to the interests of the people.
Our action now will be freer from mere partisan
consideration than if the question of tariff revision
was postponed until the regular session of Congress.
We are nearly two years from a Congressional election,
and politics cannot so greatly distract us as if
such contest was immediately pending.
We can approach the problem calmly and patriotically,
without fearing its effect upon an early election.
Our fellow-citizens who may disagree with us upon the
character of this legislation prefer to have the question
settled now, even against their preconceived views, and
perhaps settled so reasonably, as I trust and believe it will be,
as to insure great permanence, than to have further uncertainty
menacing the vast and varied business interests of the United States.
Again, whatever action Congress may take will be given a fair
opportunity for trial before the people are called to pass
judgment upon it, and this I consider a great essential
to the rightful and lasting settlement of the question.
In view of these considerations, I shall deem it my duty
as President to convene Congress in extraordinary
session on Monday, the 15th day of March, 1897.
In conclusion, I congratulate the country upon the
fraternal spirit of the people and the manifestations
of good will everywhere so apparent.
The recent election not only most fortunately demonstrated
the obliteration of sectional or geographical lines, but to
some extent also the prejudices which for years have distracted
our councils and marred our true greatness as a nation.
The triumph of the people, whose verdict is carried into
effect today, is not the triumph of one section, nor wholly
of one party, but of all sections and all the people.
The North and the South no longer divide on the old lines,
but upon principles and policies; and in this fact surely
every lover of the country can find cause for true felicitation.
Let us rejoice in and cultivate this spirit; it is ennobling and
will be both a gain and a blessing to our beloved country.
It will be my constant aim to do nothing, and permit
nothing to be done, that will arrest or disturb this growing
sentiment of unity and cooperation, this revival of esteem
and affiliation which now animates so many thousands in
both the old antagonistic sections, but I shall cheerfully
do everything possible to promote and increase it.
Let me again repeat the words of the oath administered by
the Chief Justice which, in their respective spheres, so far
as applicable, I would have all my countrymen observe:
"I will faithfully execute the office of President of the
United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve,
protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."
This is the obligation I have reverently
taken before the Lord Most High.
To keep it will be my single purpose, my constant prayer;
and I shall confidently rely upon the forbearance and assistance
of all the people in the discharge of my solemn responsibilities.8
President McKinley began by “invoking the guidance of Almighty God.”
He discussed the depression of the previous four years and suggested
remedies such as more revenues from higher tariffs on imported goods.
He noted that the current government had an annual deficit of $70 million.
He emphasized the importance of adhering to the principles
that established their government.
He promised that the Republican Party would protect citizens from corporate abuses.
The Cleveland administrations had increased the positions covered
by the civil service reforms from 42,000 to 87,000.
McKinley discussed foreign policy and war and peace.
McKinley criticized the tradition of Congress adjourning after a November election
from March to December, and he summoned the Congress to an
“extraordinary session on Monday, the 15th day of March, 1897.”
His address did not mention Cuba or Spain.
After the speech Grover Cleveland apologized to McKinley at the White House
and made a prediction, ”I am deeply sorry, Mr. President,
to pass on to you a war with Spain.
It will come within two years.
Nothing can stop it.”9
President McKinley met with his cabinet on Tuesdays and Fridays.
He listened to their ideas and then made his own decisions.
Having been in Congress he found it easy to talk with them,
and he often offered patronage to gain their votes.
McKinley had good relations with the press by having his best staffers
keep them informed on current activities.
While traveling he would talk with reporters on the train.
During his presidency he went on forty speaking tours.
As President he gave 38 public speeches in 1897, 74 in 1898, and 108 in 1899.
He formed voluntary commissions to study current issues
and included knowledgeable scholars.
Secretary of State John Sherman turned 74 in May and had trouble
with his memory and sometimes confused State Department policies.
McKinley relied on the Assistant Secretary of State William Day,
and he replaced Sherman in April 1898.
Young Charles Dawes and his wife Caro were always welcome at the White House,
and at the beginning of 1898 he became the Comptroller of the Currency.
House Ways and Means Chairman Nelson Dingley crafted a moderate tariff bill
that the journalist Ida Tarbell described as “a fairly good protectionist measure”
that she believed improved on the McKinley Bill.
The Republicans passed it in the House on 31 March 1897
to replace the Democrats’ 1894 Wilson-Gorman tariff.
The U. S. Senate added 872 amendments raising many rates before passing it on July 7.
McKinley was pleased that it provided for three kinds of reciprocal negotiation,
and he signed it into law on July 24.
Prices on raw materials had reached a low in 1896,
and this bill revived the economy and would remain in force for twelve years.
The First Lady Ida McKinley had many health problems
that included occasional seizures and times when she was an invalid.
Her husband, the President, was very caring and solicitous to her,
and sometimes the Vice President’s wife Jennie Hobart filled in for her.
President McKinley in April appointed a commission
to fix the relative value of gold to silver
that was led by
Colorado’s Senator Edward Wolcott, the outgoing Vice President
and Democrat Adlai Stevenson, and the industrialist Charles J. Paine.
They attempted to persuade the governments of Britain, France, Germany,
and others to attend a bimetallism conference.
The President told them to keep this issue separate from the tariff policy.
On July 16 the minister John Hay wrote to McKinley
that the British and the French were favorable.
On October 11 Hay learned from the Chancellor of the Exchequer
Michael Hicks Beach that the government of India was against silver coinage
and held firmly to the gold standard.
The Bank of England was also adhering to gold.
The world’s gold production was going up from $205 million in 1896
to $240 million in 1897 and rose to $300 million by 1900.
This relieved McKinley of the concern that his gold policy might restrict trade.
At the beginning of July 1897 the Trans-Mississippi Congress
met in Salt Lake City with William Jennings Bryan as chairman,
and they passed a resolution for annexing Hawaii,
building an isthmian canal, and liberating Cuba.
In 1890 Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan had published his lectures
at the Naval War College as The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783.
He warned that the European powers were building up their navies
and advised that the United States must do the same in order to be a world power.
Mahan’s ideas were supported by Theodore Roosevelt
who had published The Naval War of 1812 in 1882.
McKinley wanted to annex the Hawaiian Islands
which President Cleveland had reversed in 1893.
After McKinley’s election Hawaii’s President Sanford Dole sent the
Provisional Vice President Francis Hatch as the Hawaiian envoy to the United States.
McKinley knew that House Speaker Reed opposed the annexation of Hawaii,
and the President avoided antagonizing him.
At this time Japan had 18,156 men of voting age in Hawaii;
the 17,663 Chinese men were not asking for the franchise;
and there were 13,148 native Hawaiians and 8,275 whites.
Many Japanese were immigrating in January 1897,
and Japan sent its largest warship to Honolulu.
McKinley responded on April 2 by ordering Navy Secretary Long to send
to Hawaii three warships including the armed cruiser Philadelphia
commanded by Admiral Lester Beardslee.
That month Japan’s ambassador Okuma told Secretary of State Sherman
that Japan was against the U. S. annexation of Hawaii,
and Sherman did not inform the President.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee led by Rep. Robert Hitt
began holding hearings on the annexation.
McKinley asked Theodore Roosevelt to determine
which ships could go to Hawaii quickly.
Hawaii began rejecting more immigrants from Japan.
When McKinley sent Harold M. Sewall as the minister to Hawaii,
Edwin Godkin in The Nation called Sewall “a Jingo and annexationist.”
Carl Schurz also opposed Sewall because he was an imperialist.
The Japanese warship Naniwa arrived at Honolulu with the special emissary
Akiyama Masanosuke who complained that Hawaii’s rejecting Japanese immigrants
was violating their 1871 treaty.
He promised an investigation that could lead to an indemnity.
William Day asked Hawaii’s Secretary of State John W. Foster for an annexation treaty,
and he found the one that President Harrison had used in 1893.
On May 17 McKinley sent a message to Congress informing them that
about 700 American citizens in Cuba were destitute,
and he asked Congress to approve $50,000 to relieve them.
They did so right away, and the House passed it a few days later.
On May 20 Alabama’s Senator John Tyler Morgan offered a resolution
recognizing that “a condition of public war exists between the government of Spain
and the government proclaimed” and that the United States should pledge
“strict neutrality between the contending parties.”10
The U. S. Senate passed this 41-14 over the objections of McKinley’s allies.
On June 2 the Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt argued
for a strong navy at the Naval War College,
and he used the word “war” 62 times in his speech.
He also said,
All the great masterful races have been fighting races,
and the minute that a race loses the hard fighting virtues,
then … no matter how skilled in commerce and finance,
in science or art, it has lost
its proud right to stand as the equal of the best….
No triumph of peace is quite so great
as the supreme triumphs of war.11
One week later Roosevelt wrote in a letter to the
respected naval historian Alfred Thayer Mahan,
Yesterday I urged immediate action
by the President as regards Hawaii.
Entirely between ourselves, I believe he will act very shortly.
If we take Hawaii now, we shall avoid trouble with Japan,
but I get very despondent at times over the blindness
of our people, especially of the best-educated classes.
In strict confidence I want to tell you that Secretary Long
is only lukewarm about building up our Navy,
at any rate as regards battleships.12
The McKinley Administration received dispatches from Honolulu in June
demanding indemnities for rejected Japanese immigrants and their rights in Hawaii.
McKinley decided to send the annexation treaty to the Senate for ratification.
On June 10 Navy Secretary Long wired Admiral Beardslee,
Watch carefully the situation.
If Japanese openly resort to force,
such as military occupation or seizure of public buildings,
confer with Minister and authorities, land a suitable force,
and announce officially provisional assumption of
protectorate pending ratification of treaty of annexation.13
On June 16 Sherman and Hawaiian diplomatic commissioners signed the treaty.
McKinley sent it to the Senate, and he approved
leaking to the press Beardslee's orders.
Japan in late July agreed to Hawaii’s offer to submit all their disputes to arbitration.
By fall the United States had assured the Japanese
that the U. S. would honor the legitimate indemnity claims.
The U. S. Congress would approve the annexation treaty on 4 July 1898
by a joint resolution that required only majority votes.
The House passed it 209-81, and two days later the Senate approved it 42-21.
McKinley signed it the next day.
Some U. S. politicians were concerned about
how American citizens in Cuba during the insurgency were being treated.
At the end of 1896 Cuba was occupied by about 160,000 Spanish soldiers.
Spain complained about filibusterers from the United States,
and McKinley agreed with Cleveland that they should be stopped.
Secretary of State Sherman in April warned Americans going to Cuba
to act in lawful ways, or they would face consequences for hostile acts.
The Republican Senator George F. Hoar of Massachusetts
passionately opposed imperialism.
McKinley had sent Stewart Woodford of New York as minister to Madrid in June,
and on July 16 Sherman wrote to Woodford in Spain that their policy was
neither to annex Cuba nor to fight a war and that McKinley was willing
to mediate to achieve a peaceful solution.
On August 19 the Secretary’s second assistant in the State Department,
Alvey A. Adee, wrote a memorandum that Sherman sent to McKinley which warned,
A “recognition of belligerency”—as the issuance
of a formal proclamation of neutrality is generally styled—
is not a middle course,—
it would rather be a stepping stone to intervention.14
He explained that neutrality would give Spain the right
to search and interdict U. S. ships,
and that could provoke a casus belli which
would precipitate an alliance with Cuban insurgents.
William J. Calhoun, a lawyer who knew McKinley when they were schoolboys,
reported that rebellion in Cuba was devastating American investments and trade
especially because of the reconcentrados policy
perpetrated by General Valeriano Weyler.
Calhoun said the insurgents would accept nothing less than independence
and that Weyler’s forces could not win.
McKinley wanted to end the war and sent a note protesting Weyler’s policies
to Spain’s Ambassador in Washington,
and he demanded that Spain follow “military codes of civilization.”
On September 18 the U. S. minister Woodford spent five hours
talking with Spain’s foreign minister, the Duke of Tetuan.
He asked Tetuan to reply by November 1.
President McKinley shared his policy with a Congressman
who anonymously gave it to the Chicago Tribune
which printed it on September 29:
I know that the people of this country
from one end to the other are getting impatient
because we do not move faster,
but I am convinced that prosperity is here and that
war is the only thing which will prevent its continuance.
It would be easy to free Cuba by a war,
but to do it without one, to satisfy the people,
and keep us in the high road to prosperity,
is a thing which cannot be done in a day.
That is the problem which confronts us,
and we must solve it slowly but surely.15
On October 4 Spain’s Queen Regent Maria Cristina recognized
the Liberals’ government led by Práxedes Mateo Sagasta, and their policy
was to balance counterinsurgency with substantial autonomy for Cubans.
Sagasta replaced General Weyler with General Ramón Blanco y Erenas.
About 350,000 creditors were afraid that they would be overcome
by over a million non-Spanish Cubans.
In October the insurgents rejected autonomy.
Sagasta asked the United States to do more to prevent the filibustering in Cuba,
and he indicated that Spain intended to retain Cuba.
President McKinley in his First Annual Message to Congress on December 6
thanked providence for prosperity and affirmed,
“Peace and good will with all the nations of the earth continue unbroken.”
Congress passed his tariff bill, and he expected his administration would put finances
on a sound basis by preventing the gold reserve from being depleted.
He noted that relations with Spain and Cuba were an important problem.
He reviewed the recent history of Cuba and hoped that
they could help bring about peace.
He promised, “The United States for its part shall enforce its neutral obligations
and cut off the assistance which it is asserted
the insurgents receive from this country.”16
He criticized the cruelty of Spain’s policy of extermination.
He suggested that untried remedies were:
Recognition of the insurgents as belligerents;
recognition of the independence of Cuba;
neutral intervention to end the war by imposing
a rational compromise between the contestants,
and intervention in favor of one or the other party.17
He ruled out forcible annexation because it would be “criminal aggression.”
So far he found the insurrection “impracticable and indefensible.”
McKinley reported that the Republic of Hawaii had fully ratified
the annexation treaty and that the U. S. Senate still needed to do so.
He noted that issues of Japanese immigration to Hawaii were being negotiated.
He asked the Congress to fund the needed armor for Navy ships.
He claimed that the public approved the expansion of the U. S. Navy.
He also discussed the situation of the five civilized tribes of Indians.
Interior Secretary Dawes was advising individual ownership.
The government was financing the railroads, and he asked the Congress
to decide on the government ownership of railroads.
He hoped that civil service reforms would continue to reduce incompetency,
and he urged the Congress to reduce the expenses of the government.
McKinley made an appeal for Americans to donate to the Red Cross
to help relieve destitute Cubans,
and at the end of the year he sent an anonymous check for $5,000.
Spain’s grant of autonomy to Cuba and Puerto Rico began
at the beginning of 1898; and it did not have much support and had little effect.
In early January the Ohio legislature elected
Mark Hanna to the U. S. Senate for a 6-year term.
On the 11th the Navy Secretary Long wired the European Squadron commander
to retain all sailors even those whose enlistments were expiring.
The next day soldiers loyal to General Weyler led Spanish mobs in the streets
of Havana attacking offices of liberal newspapers and breaking shop windows.
Thousands of conservative Cubans criticized Havana newspapers
and denounced the Spanish army in Cuba.
The Senate’s Republican chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee,
Cushman Davis of Minnesota, wanted to get the Hawaii annexation treaty ratified,
and they lacked the two-thirds needed.
Davis warned that Britain, Japan, or Germany could get control of Hawaii.
Three Republicans from Nebraska, Iowa, and Wisconsin were opposed
because their states sold sugar beets which would be competing with Hawaii’s sugar.
McKinley sent a commission to Nicaragua to study the possibility of a canal
to connect the two oceans, though the U. S. and Britain had agreed to the
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty in 1850 promising to share such a canal.
In December 1896 President Cleveland had criticized the Junta in New York City,
which supported Cuban rebels, for increasing enmity in the United States
that made foreign relations more difficult.
He warned that if peace was not established,
the insurrection would lead to American intervention in Cuba.
On January 15 the U. S. Minister Woodford met with
Spain’s Queen Regent Maria Cristina in Madrid.
She appreciated McKinley’s efforts to end the war in Cuba,
and she promised autonomy to Cubans with her new ministry there.
She asked President McKinley to break up the Junta in New York
and to call on U. S. citizens not to support the insurrection in Cuba.
Woodford said that most Americans wanted the war to end
and that McKinley would do what the people wanted.
Woodford noted there was a recent rebellion in General Blanco’s army
and that conspiracies may be threatening her government in Spain.
She replied that she would crush that,
and she asked McKinley to let her policies succeed.
The next day Woodford learned from the Colonial Minister Moret
that conservatives demanded that Weyler be reinstated.
Woodford replied that Weyler would not be allowed back in Cuba.
On January 20 Dupuy de Lôme, Spain’s ambassador, visited William Day
at the U. S. State Department, and he insisted that
the U. S. shut down the New York Junta.
Day asked him how Spain would respond if the U. S. sent ships
to protect American citizens and property in Havana.
Dupuy replied it would be unfriendly.
Day reported this to McKinley who ordered the Navy Secretary Long
to send the battleship Maine to Havana,
and that ship entered the Havana harbor on January 25.
McKinley in late January told a thousand leaders in the
National Association of Manufacturers that the U. S. Government
would pay in gold for outstanding U. S. bonds.
Hawaii’s President Sanford Dole came to Washington
and was welcomed at the White House on January 26.
The next week McKinley honored him with a reception with about 3,000 guests.
A joint resolution could approve the treaty by majority votes,
and the Davis committee passed it on March 16.
Spain’s reply to McKinley’s policy given to Woodford on February 3
warned that the U. S. had no right to intervene in Cuba.
On February 9 Dupuy advised the Spanish foreign minister Gullóne Iglesias
that the New York Journal, which supported the Junta,
would publish Dupuy’s letter criticizing McKinley as
weak and a bidder for the admiration of the crowd,
besides being a would-be politician who tries
to leave a door open behind himself while
keeping on good terms with the jingoes of his party.”18
William Randolph Heart’s New York Journal called it
the “worst insult to the United States in its history.”
Spain’s government accepted Dupuy’s resignation
and praised his conduct in Washington.
On February 15 at 9:40 p.m. an explosion ripped a hole in the hull of the Maine.
The two stacks collapsed, and the ship began to sink.
Commander Sigsbee and survivors got off the ship and on to
the U. S. steamer City of Washington and the Spanish man-of-war Alfonso.
Sigsbee’s report went to Navy Secretary Long
and reached President McKinley at 1 a.m.
The death toll would be 266 men.
On the 16th the President approved Long’s naval board of inquiry,
and he advised his cabinet and Congressmen to be calm and patient.
Hearst’s Journal and Joseph Pulitzer’s World in New York called for war.
In the next week Pulitzer sold five million newspapers.
The President’s cabinet discussed demanding
an indemnity from Spain and declaring war.
Spain’s colonial minister Moret accused a U. S. naval officer of aiding rebel filibusters
in the Dominican Republic and the U. S. Consul Fitzhugh Lee in Havana
of having ties to rebels and working for the U. S. annexation of Cuba.
President McKinley appointed many qualified black men.
Very early in the morning on February 21 the home and post office
of the Lake City Postmaster Frazier Baker in South Carolina
were burned as shots were fired at the house.
Baker and an infant were killed,
and his wife and three children were seriously wounded.
McKinley ordered that post office closed, and he said that
the perpetrators should be “arrested, tried, and if convicted, executed!”19
The President had the Attorney General John Griggs aid the U. S. District Attorney,
and thirteen men were tried.
Three were acquitted, and five jurors were brave enough to vote for conviction.
The judge declared a mistrial, and the two threatened witnesses disappeared.
On February 25 while Navy Secretary Long was taking a day off,
his assistant Theodore Roosevelt ordered Commodore George Dewey
to prepare in Hong Kong for “offensive operations in the Philippine Islands”
in case Spain declared war.
Long was concerned that Roosevelt sometimes did not have
“a cool head and careful discretion.”
Dewey’s squadron reached Hong Kong harbor in early March.
On March 7 McKinley met with congressional leaders, War Secretary Alger,
and Navy Secretary Long to discuss military preparations for a possible war.
Two days later the Congress unanimously appropriated $50 million
of which $37 million went to the U. S. Navy that included two new cruisers
the British had built for Brazil that Spanish officials had been hoping to get.
Spain had a $400 million debt and was spending
$8 million per month fighting Cuban rebels.
Senator Redfield Proctor of Vermont had toured Cuba recently
and informed his friend McKinley how devastated Cuba was.
On March 22 Woodford warned Moret that Spain must
make an agreement with Cuban rebels in a few days,
or the crisis would be turned over to the U. S. Congress.
On the 25th the Navy Inquiry concluded that
an external explosion blew up the Maine, and Spain’s report on March 22
had concluded that the explosion was caused by an internal cause.
In 1976 the U. S. Admiral Hyman Rickover supervised an investigation
which found that the explosion was probably caused
by a spontaneous combustion in Maine’s coal bins.
On March 26 William Day sent a cable to Woodford advising,
For your guidance the President suggests that
if Spain will revoke the concentration order
and maintain the people until they can support themselves
and offer to the Cubans full self-government
with reasonable indemnity,
the President will gladly assist in its consummation.
If Spain should invite the United States to mediate for peace
and the insurgents would make the request,
the President might undertake such office of friendship.20
Day also wired the President’s desire for an armistice until October 1 initiated by Spain,
negotiations between Spain and the insurgents,
Spanish cooperation with U. S. relief efforts,
and arbitration by McKinley himself.
Spain’s foreign minister Gullóne Iglesias consulted the Council of Ministers
and then told Woodford that Spain would authorize the Cuban Congress
to negotiate peace with the rebels when it met on May 4.
Democrats in the U. S. House of Representatives voted for a resolution
to recognize Cuban independence, and they were outvoted.
McKinley sent his ultimatum to Spain.
On March 26 he wrote, “There is no hope of peace through Spanish arms.”
On the 27th he suggested the armistice until October 1,
negotiations through his “friendly offices,” revocation of the reconcentrado order,
and if those fail, his arbitration between Spain and the insurgents.
On March 29 Vice President Hobart warned McKinley
that he was losing his influence with Republican senators.
On the 31st Woodford advised McKinley that Spain’s Prime Minister Sagasta
would submit the Maine issue to arbitration, end the reconcentrado policy,
provide money for Cuban relief, and accept a cease fire until May 4
if it was offered by the rebels.
Some newspapers supported McKinley’s patient diplomacy,
and a large crowd in Richmond, Virginia hanged and burned the president in effigy.
Germany offered Pope Leo XIII as a mediator, and he proposed an armistice.
On April 4 Day advised Woodford that Spain’s Manifesto of the
Autonomy Government was not an armistice but a “scheme for home rule.”
McKinley planned to send a message to Congress on April 6,
and he agreed to put it off for five days to allow Americans to leave Cuba.
Six European ambassadors sent McKinley a letter
urging him to settle the conflicts peacefully.
They urged the Queen Regent to accept an armistice,
and her policy allowed General Blanco to set the conditions.
On April 9 the U. S. Consul Fitzhugh Lee and 300 Americans left Cuba.
On April 11 President McKinley sent his
7,000-word message to Congress on the war crisis.
He quoted from his previous message in December for
“neutral intervention to end the war.”
He reviewed the history of Mexico and Texas.
He summarized the four main reasons for intervening as follows:
First. In the cause of humanity and to put an end to
the barbarities, bloodshed, starvation, and horrible miseries
now existing there, and which the parties to the conflict
are either unable or unwilling to stop or mitigate.
It is no answer to say this is all in another country,
belonging to another nation,
and is therefore none of our business.
It is specially our duty, for it is right at our door.
Second. We owe it to our citizens in Cuba to afford them
that protection and indemnity for life and property
which no government there can or will afford,
and to that end to terminate the conditions
that deprive them of legal protection.
Third. The right to intervene may be justified
by the very serious injury to the commerce, trade,
and business of our people, and by the wanton destruction
of property and devastation of the island.
Fourth, and which is of the utmost importance.
The present condition of affairs in Cuba
is a constant menace to our peace,
and entails upon this Government an enormous expense.
With such a conflict waged for years in an island so near us
and with which our people have such trade
and business relations;
when the lives and liberty of our citizens are in constant
danger and their property destroyed and themselves ruined;
where our trading vessels are liable to seizure and
are seized at our very door by war ships of a foreign nation,
the expeditions of filibustering
that we are powerless to prevent altogether,
and the irritating questions and entanglements thus arising—
all these and others that I need not mention,
with the resulting strained relations,
are constant menace to our peace,
and compel us to keep on a semiwar footing
with a nation with which we are at peace.21
On April 13 House Democrats lost a vote
to recognize the Cuban Republic 150-190.
On April 19 the “Joint Resolution for the Recognition of the Independence
of the people of Cuba, demanding that the government of Spain relinquish
its authority and government on the island of Cuba, and withdraw
its land and naval forces from Cuba and Cuban waters,
and directing the President of the United States to use the land and naval forces
of the United States to carry this resolution into effect”
passed in the U. S. House of Representatives by a 311-6 vote
authorizing McKinley’s intervention to end the war, and the Senate approved it 52-35.
The Teller amendment renounced annexation of Cuba by stating,
That the United States hereby disclaims any disposition
or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control
over said island except for the pacification thereof,
and asserts its determination, when that is accomplished,
to leave the government and control of the island
to its people.22
While McKinley was signing the bill on April 20,
he said that Spain had three days to accept his ultimatum.
The next day Spain broke off diplomatic relations with the United States,
and Woodford left Madrid.
On April 21 President McKinley ordered the Atlantic squadron
under Commodore William Sampson to blockade Cuba.
The next day they agreed that National Guard units would serve intact
under their officers while the President maintained the right
to appoint volunteers as officers.
The U. S. Congress approved the enlistment of volunteers to increase
the military to 65,527 men for the duration of the war.
On the 23rd McKinley called for 125,000 volunteers for two years
or until the end of the war, and Spain declared war on the United States.
On April 24 McKinley approved the Navy Secretary Long’s wire
to Commodore George Dewey which instructed him,
Proceed at once to the Philippines.
Commence operations against the Spanish squadron.
You must capture or destroy.
Use utmost endeavors.23
On that day the Spanish Admiral Patricio Montojo decided to move his
flotilla of twelve ships to Subic Bay in the Philippines.
The United States declared war against the Kingdom of Spain on April 25, 1898.
McKinley made it retroactive to April 21, the day he had ordered the blockade.
On April 22 the U. S. cruiser Nashville captured
the Spanish merchant-ship Buenaventura.
By making the war declaration retroactive that meant that
prizes taken in blockaded waters could legally be confiscated.
U. S. law made the officers and crew of the capturing ship
the co-owners of the prize taken.
A year earlier the Congress had funded the building of four new battleships
and 15 torpedo boats with heavy armor and powerful ordnance.
In addition the U. S. Navy had 35 other ships.
Since January 1898 the Navy had been retaining enlistments that had expired,
and Dewey had been training his men to fight the Spanish fleet in Asia.
McKinley asked Congress for a declaration of war against Spain on April 25,
and the Congress passed the bill declaring that Spain had begun the war on April 21.
On that day the U. S. Postmaster Gary had resigned,
and he was replaced by Charles Emory Smith who had been minister to Russia.
On April 29 the top U. S. General Nelson Miles ordered General William Shafter
to muster 5,000 men at Tampa, Florida to prepare for the invasion of Cuba.
Theodore Roosevelt managed to get commissioned as a lieutenant colonel
to organize volunteer U. S. Cavalry.
He recruited from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and another college
and from clubs in Boston and New York.
Other men from New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma, and the Indian Territory
gathered in San Antonio, Texas.
They were commanded by Roosevelt’s friend Leonard Wood.
Trains took them most of the way from Texas to Tampa,
and they were called “Rough Riders.”
Lt. John Pershing led the 10th Cavalry of well-trained black troops,
and he was called “Black Jack” Pershing.
George W. Prideau, the black chaplain of the 9th U. S. Cavalry wrote to the
Cleveland Gazette on May 13 about the prejudice against the Negroes,
and he concluded,
The four Negro regiments are going to help free Cuba,
and they return to their homes, some then mustered out
and begin again to fight the battle of American prejudice.24
McKinley asked for excise tax increases on beer and tobacco
and also a stamp tax on legal documents, stock transfers,
and bank checks in order to raise $100 million.
The U. S. Congress approved this quickly.
The President also promoted eleven men to be major generals
including the southerners Joe Wheeler and Fitzhugh Lee.
In the dark early on May 1 Dewey’s nine black ships
entered the Manila harbor in the Philippines.
They sank Admiral Montojo’s flagship Reina Cristina,
and they destroyed or disabled seven other Spanish warships
while killing 161 Spaniards and wounding 210.
The Americans had no deaths and only nine wounded.
Dewey took over the naval station at Cavite.
The next day he warned Spanish authorities that if Manila fired a cannon
at his ships again, he would destroy the city.
They accepted his terms and surrendered.
When they would not let him use their telegraph cable, Dewey had it cut.
McKinley promoted Dewey to rear admiral and approved the organizing
of troops in San Francisco led by General Wesley Merritt to command
a Philippine
expeditionary force in the new Department of the Pacific with 15,000 men.
That was increased to 20,000.
The Army Signal Corps installed telegraph and telephones
in the White House with a direct line to Tampa.
On May 2 at a meeting of the cabinet and the military the President
approved a strategy of 50,000 soldiers attacking Cuba near Havana probably at Mariel.
War Secretary Alger said he needed three weeks to prepare the troops.
On May 6 Navy Secretary Long said his ships were ready to transport soldiers.
On May 9 General Shafter was ordered to “seize and hold Mariel.”
Other troops were delayed for a week.
On May 19 they learned that Cervera’s Spanish fleet had entered the harbor
at Santiago de Cuba, a city of 30,000 people.
One week later the war council at the White House approved a strategy.
On May 12 Admiral William Sampson’s squadron bombarded San Juan,
Puerto Rico for a few hours early in the morning,
though there was little damage on either side.
On May 19 McKinley ordered General Merritt to take his 8th Corps
to the Philippines and to declare that they came to protect the rights of the people.
On that day Edwin Godkin wrote in the Nation that McKinley’s installing
a military governor in the Philippines “initiates the first experiment which this nation
has ever tried in the control of a territory at a great remove from our shores.”25
On May 25 McKinley summoned 75,000 more men for the army and navy.
On that day the 8th Corps sailed from San Francisco,
and on June 21 they took over Guam in a bloodless coup.
Guam would connect a telegraph line from the Philippines to the United States
and would serve American ships as a coaling station.
On May 31 McKinley ordered Adjutant General Corbin
to send Shafter’s Fifth Corps from Tampa to Santiago.
By June 1 about 300 railroad cars had arrived at Tampa
with diverse war materials that were not well organized.
Theodore Roosevelt led his Rough Riders on a four-day ride from Texas,
and they arrived to discover they had to buy food with their own money.
By June 8 Shafter had on 35 ships 17,000 men, 959 horses, 1,336 mules,
81 wagons, armaments, 89 reporters, 11 military advisors, and clerks.
They waited for a naval escort led by Commodore Sampson.
The Boston banker Gamaliel Bradford persuaded the aldermen
to allow a meeting on June 15 in Faneuil Hall.
Bradford criticized the war as not for humanity and for
“private interests seeking gain, politicians striving to keep themselves in power,
and imaginations thirsting after military and naval glory”
led by a faction that was seeking “a military empire in Asia.”
Rev. Charles Gordon Ames objected to a war “by the right of might,”
and he asked, “Can we not show the world a more excellent way?”
The lawyer Moorfield Storey denounced “territorial aggrandizement”
and called colonialism “a violation of the principles upon which this Government rests.”
The delegates voted to oppose the United States holding colonies.
George E. McNeill was a founding member of the American Federation of Labor,
and he warned, “The cost of standing armies and navies, colonial governments,
and infrastructural developments awaited the conquering power.”26
He asked if they wanted to assimilate millions of Asians.
They formed a Committee of Correspondence
that would draft a constitution on November 18 for the Anti-Imperialist League.
They elected the 80-year-old former governor, Treasury Secretary,
and U. S. Senator George Sewall Boutwell as their president.
Their honorary vice presidents included Andrew Carnegie, Grover Cleveland,
John Sherman, Samuel Gompers, Carl Schurz, and Charles Francis Adams Jr.
U. S. forces left Tampa on June 14
and reached the southern shore of Cuba five days later.
Rebels advised Shafter to land his men by the hamlet of Dalquiri.
He sent 6,000 men who took over the town of Siboney
from 600 Spanish troops on June 23.
Shafter reported that in the day-long battle 225 Americans were killed
with 1,384 wounded while the Spanish lost only 215 dead and 376 wounded.
The next day General Joseph Wheeler led the attack near Santiago at Guasimas
in which Americans had 15 killed and 52 wounded
while the Spanish had only 21 casualties.
Shafter’s army took the road to Santiago, and on June 30
they marched all day to the heights of Santiago.
They were under Spanish fire from the heights of San Juan Hill and Kettle Hill.
In the afternoon Roosevelt’s Rough Riders advanced ahead of the other troops,
and Pershing’s 10th Cavalry of well-trained black troops
joined their attack on Kettle Hill.
On July 2 Shafter asked for a hospital ship for the wounded.
The next day he cabled that he could not take Santiago, and he wanted to withdraw.
That day he also reported that Cervera’s fleet had left the Santiago harbor.
On July 4 Sampson contradicted this.
He described how on the 3rd Cervera’s escape was blocked
and that six Spanish ships had been sunk, burned, or destroyed.
The United States had only two casualties
while they killed 343 Spaniards and captured 1,889.
Shafter on July 8 asked for permission to surrender,
and the surprised McKinley did not approve that.
The Philippines has about 600 islands and is 7,292 miles from Los Angeles.
Emilio Aguinaldo led the Philippine Revolutionary Army,
and he had been made the president of the Filipino resistance in early 1897.
His rival Andrés Bonifacio was executed on May 10.
The Spanish Governor-General Fernando Primo de Rivera paid Aguinaldo
and the rebels $800,000 to move to Hong Kong.
On 24 April 1898 Aguinaldo at Singapore met with the U. S. Consul E. Spencer Pratt,
and they agreed to oppose the Spanish.
Pratt telegraphed Commodore Dewey at Hong Kong, and the U. S. Navy
transported Aguinaldo and 17 revolutionary leaders from Hong Kong to Manila.
Dewey met with Aguinaldo on May 19,
and later Dewey denied that he offered them weapons.
On June 23 Aguinaldo proclaimed a revolutionary government in the Philippines,
and he wanted the U. S. to recognize Philippine independence.
On July 10 Germans sent Lt. Hintze to Dewey’s flagship Olympia
to protest that Americans from the cutter McCulloch
had boarded the German ship Irene in Manila Bay.
Admiral Dewey got angry and threatened war,
and Vice Admiral Otto von Diedrichs did not take offense.
On July 11 Amos K. Fiske wrote in the New York Times an editorial that began,
“There can be no question to perplex any reasonable mind about the wisdom
of taking possession of the island of Puerto Rico and keeping it for all time.”
He argued that the U. S. is “not pledged to give Puerto Rico independence,”
and he concluded, “The circumstances of the conflict for the enfranchisement of Cuba
and Puerto Rico fully entitle us to retain the latter as a permanent possession.”27
On July 21 the U. S. government informed the press,
“Puerto Rico will be kept….
That is settled, and has been the plan from the first.
Once taken it will never be released.”
On July 28 the Nation countered, “Porto Rico is entitled to decide her own destiny
by a fair vote of her people, and that she ought not to be forcibly annexed …
without the consent of the inhabitants.”28
On July 22 the New York Times printed an interview with the Puerto Rican
educator Eugenio Hostos who said that a plebiscite found that
Puerto Ricans wanted either statehood or independence.
Ramón Betances, who was called “Father of the Poor,”
led the independence movement in Puerto Rico, and he warned,
It’s extremely important that
when the first troops of the United States reach shore,
they should be received by Puerto Rican troops,
waving the flag of independence and greeting them.
Let the North Americans cooperate in the achievement
of our freedom; but not push the country to annexation.
If Puerto Rico does not move quickly,
it will be an American colony forever.”29
Betances offered to negotiate political concessions;
he was disregarded, and he died on September 16.
General Nelson Miles had reported on July 13 that the Americans
were suffering from a hundred cases of yellow fever.
McKinley and his cabinet urged them to attack Santiago.
Generals Shafter and Miles threatened to bombard the city,
and General José Toral surrendered on the 17th.
McKinley offered his troops transport home to Spain,
and officers were allowed to keep their sidearms.
On July 23 the scholar Charles Eliot Norton protested the war
in a speech at Cambridge in which he said,
“There never was a good war,” said Franklin.
There have indeed been many wars in which
a good man must take part….
But if a war be undertaken for the most righteous end,
before the resources of peace have been tried
and proved vain to secure it, that war has no defense.
It is a national crime.
The plea that the better government of Cuba,
and the relief of the reconcentrados, could only be secured
by war is the plea either of ignorance or of hypocrisy.30
General Miles led his army to Puerto Rico, and they landed at Guánica on July 25.
Two days later Spain’s Foreign Minister, the Duke of Almodóvar del Río,
advised the Ambassador Leon y Castillo at Paris that the invasion of Puerto Rico
led by U. S. General Miles would make the peace “more onerous.”
Within two weeks the Americans gained control of the island
except for the capital at San Juan.
On July 28 Miles as the commander of the invasion
proclaimed from his headquarters at Ponce,
The chief object of the American military forces
will be to overthrow the armed authority of Spain
and to give to the people of your beautiful island
the largest measure of liberty
consistent with this military occupation.”31
On July 26 McKinley had met with the French ambassador
Jules Cambon and his assistant Eugene Thiebault.
They explained that they were representing the Queen Regent of Spain,
and they wanted to end the war in Cuba with “liberal and honorable terms.”
Secretary of State Day asked about the Philippines,
and McKinley hoped to settle the Philippines by peace talks.
The President and his cabinet agreed that Spain was to give up Cuba and Puerto Rico,
and that peace negotiators could work on the Philippines.
The United States was occupying and holding the harbor and part of the city of Manila.
On July 30 McKinley and Day presented their proposal to Cambon,
and McKinley insisted on keeping Puerto Rico.
On August 4 Cambon conveyed that Spain’s Foreign Minister Almodóva
considered the U. S. proposal for Spain ceding Puerto Rico was “very severe.”
That day they agreed that five commissioners from each side would negotiate in Paris.
U. S. General Shafter reported that the number of sick men in his army
had increased to 4,290 by August 2,
and there were not enough ships to evacuate his 5th Corps.
On August 3 he was ordered to move his army to San Luis in the interior of Cuba,
and he insisted on withdrawal because of the malaria
and the worse danger of yellow fever.
Theodore Roosevelt wrote for several officers in a letter that the 5th Corps
had become an “army of convalescents”
and should be transported back to the United States,
warning, “The whole command is so weakened and shattered as to be ripe for dying
like sheep when a real yellow fever epidemic …
strikes us as it is bound to if we stay here.”32
Angry McKinley questioned War Secretary Alger and ordered an investigation.
On August 9 Cambon and Thiebault conveyed Spain’s assertion
that they could not evacuate Cuba and Puerto Rico
until the Spanish legislature approved.
On August 12 in Washington the U. S. Secretary of State Day
and Cambon for Spain signed the protocol.
McKinley also signed it and proclaimed he was suspending U. S. military action.
Cuba was made independent; the United States annexed Puerto Rico;
and the U. S. would stay in the Philippines until a peace treaty
“shall determine the control, disposition and government of the Philippines.”
Ships transported the U. S. soldiers from Cuba
to Montauk on Long Island, New York.
In the brief war combat killed only 281 American soldiers,
and about 2,500 died of typhus and other diseases.
In a war that lasted 105 days the U. S. Army had increased from 25,000 men
to about 270,000, and half of those did not get beyond their training camps.
Compared to the U. S. Civil War this short war had so few casualties
that Lincoln’s former secretary John Hay called it “a splendid little war.”
The American military held only the harbor and part of the city of Manila
while Aguinaldo said he had about 67,000 soldiers,
and he planned to raise 100,000 more.
Aguinaldo also said Dewey promised that the U. S. would
recognize Philippine independence; but Dewey denied that.
Aguinaldo from May to August recruited fighters and gained allies
seizing Luzon and surrounding Manila where Dewey’s warships protected his men.
McKinley sent 20,000 soldiers to General Merritt
who in August led 11,000 to Cavite at Manila.
Spain had 15,000 soldiers and about 60,000 civilians inside the city.
The new Spanish Governor-General Basilio Augustín wanted to surrender,
and he was replaced on July 24 by Fermín Jáudenes who negotiated that
he would only hold on briefly for his honor.
Merritt’s forces attacked on August 13.
When the rebels heard of that, they invaded the suburbs of Manila
and were kept out of the city by the Americans.
After Manila capitulated, on August 14 General Merritt raised the U. S. flag.
Filipinos were not allowed to participate in the victory parade
because Aguinaldo’s soldiers were not permitted in the city.
On August 21 McKinley gave the following order to Admiral Dewey:
The President directs that
there must be no joint occupation with the insurgents.
The United States in possession of Manila City, Manila Bay,
and harbor must preserve the peace and protect
persons and property within the territory
occupied by their military and naval forces.
The insurgents and all others must recognize
the military occupation and authority of the United States
and the cessation of hostilities proclaimed by the President.
U. S.e whatever means in your judgment
are necessary to this end.
All law-abiding people must be treated alike.33
General Elwell Otis became the Military Governor of the Philippines on August 28.
Aguinaldo wanted Otis to remove the Americans
because the people would fight for independence.
On August 26 McKinley had instructed the Commissioners for Puerto Rico
“that Puerto Rico and the other mentioned islands, with the exception of Cuba,
will be converted into United States territory.”34
On September 3 McKinley, Vice President Hobart,
and Alger visited the camp at Montauk for five hours.
As the U. S. was about to double their forces to 22,000 General Otis demanded
that Aguinaldo move his soldiers out of a Manila suburb within a week,
or he would use force.
Aguinaldo said he would if Otis softened his language.
Otis complied, and on September 14 about 2,000 Filipino soldiers marched out
of two zones in Manilla and saluted the American flag as three bands played.
The next day at a church next to Aguinaldo’s headquarters
a national assembly with a hundred delegates gathered.
McKinley appointed General Grenville Dodge to head the commission
to investigate the War Department.
Then he named Day to head the peace commission and appointed
the newspaper editor Whitelaw Reid and three U. S. Senators.
Senator Chandler of New Hampshire wrote to McKinley that his appointing senators
to be peace commissioners was unconstitutional, and he did not press the issue.
In his Instructions on September 16 to the U.S. Peace Commission the President wrote,
As an essential preliminary to the agreement
to appoint commissioners to treat of peace,
this government required of that of Spain the unqualified
concession of the following precise demands:
1. The relinquishment of all claim of sovereignty
over and title to Cuba.
2. The cession to the United States of Puerto Rico and
other islands under Spanish sovereignty in the West Indies.
3. The cession of an island in the Ladrones,
to be selected by the United States.
4. The immediate evacuation by Spain of Cuba,
Puerto Rico, and other Spanish islands in the West Indies.
5. The occupation by the United States of the city,
bay, and harbor of Manila pending the conclusion
of a treaty of peace which should determine
the control, disposition, and government of the Philippines….
The war has brought us new duties and responsibilities
which we must meet and discharge
as becomes a great nation on whose growth and career
from the beginning the ruler of nations had plainly written
the high command and pledge of civilization.
Incidental to our tenure in the Philippines
is the commercial opportunity to which
American statesmanship cannot be indifferent.
It is just to use every legitimate means
for the enlargement of American trade;
but we seek no advantages in the Orient
which are not common to all.
Asking only the open door to ourselves,
we are ready to accord the open door to others.
The commercial opportunity which is naturally and inevitably
associated with this new opening depends less
on large territorial possession than upon an adequate
commercial basis and upon broad and equal privileges.35
The five commissioners and their wives sailed for Europe the next day.
The President recalled John Hay from England to become Secretary of State
after he had improved relations between the British and the Americans.
McKinley tried to remove the anti-imperialist George Hoar from the Senate
by appointing him to replace Hay in England, but Hoar declined.
The New York lawyer Joseph Choate went to England instead.
Booker T. Washington in September said,
My opinion is that the Philippine Islands
should be given an opportunity to govern themselves.
They will make mistakes but will learn from their errors.
Until our nation has settled the Indian and Negro problems,
I do not think we have a right
to assume more social problems.36
On September 22 Carl Schurz wrote in a letter to McKinley,
This popular feeling against such political entanglements
by the proposed annexations will very much grow
in intensity as the burdens
which the imperialistic policy will put upon us,
become more apparent to the public mind.37
On September 26 McKinley persuaded his less than competent
War Secretary Russell Alger to accept a commission to investigate the War Department,
and the President appointed the retired general
and successful businessman Grenville Dodge as its head.
Francis V. Greene had raised the 71st New York Volunteer Infantry,
and he was made a colonel on May 2.
He led 3,550 troops that fought in the battle of Manila
that captured the important port on August 13.
Greene was promoted to Brigadier General and returned from the Philippines
to meet with McKinley five times starting on September 27.
He told the President that Spain could no longer govern the Philippines
which could be taken by Germany, Japan, Russia, or England.
He said Emilio Aguinaldo would be a dictator and would not last long,
that educated Filipinos wanted American protection,
that no native government could survive without protection
from a strong foreign government, and that Manila and the Philippines
offered commercial benefits to the U. S. that included
gold, coal, oil, sulfur, rice, corn, hemp, sugar, tobacco, coffee, cotton, and cocoa.
He suggested building railroads in the interior of Luzon.
Greene brought reports on how the Spanish government was corrupt.
Finally on October 1 he advised that if the Philippine Islands were divided,
the economy would suffer.
McKinley decided that the United States should take all of the Philippines,
and he sent copies of Greene’s report to the commissioners in Paris.
On October 1 McKinley met with representatives of Aguinaldo
whose chief diplomat was the rich Filipino lawyer Felipe Agoncillo.
He asked for Filipino representation at the Paris peace talks, and that was denied.
On October 3 Admiral Dewey met with President McKinley
and advised him to “keep the islands permanently.”
McKinley made a two-week tour of the West
where he spoke 57 times to excited crowds with major speeches
in Omaha on October 12, in St. Louis, and in Chicago on the 18th.
He toured the South in the middle of December.
William Jennings Bryan came to Washington to support the treaty,
and he argued that they should ratify the treaty,
take the islands from Spain and then make them independent.
The U. S. economy was improving, and for the first time the exports
were double the imports.
In the November elections the Democrats gained 29 seats in the House
while Republicans lost 21; and in the U. S. Senate the Democrats lost eight,
and Republicans added nine.
On November 11 Red Tolbert told McKinley how he and his brother Tom
tried to witness sworn statements of blacks who were not allowed
to vote at Greenville, South Carolina.
Angry Democratic election officials attacked the Tolberts and started a riot,
and that led to armed riders attacking hundreds of black tenants, killing several.
There was also violence against black voters in Wilmington, North Carolina
that killed at least 21 black men.
McKinley learned that the U. S. Supreme Court had blocked
federal intervention in state elections, and Congress would not act.
A protest meeting at Cooper Union in New York recommended
a constitutional amendment to enable the President to intervene.
Over 5,000 gathered in Washington DC,
and some criticized McKinley and Booker T. Washington.
They had spoken at the Chicago Jubilee on October 17 when Washington said,
I want to present the deep gratitude of nearly 10 million
of my people to our wise patient and brave Chief Executive,
for the generous manner in which my race
has been recognized during the conflict;
a recognition that has done more to blot out sectional and
racial lines than any event since the dawn of freedom.38
Washington invited the President to visit Tuskegee Institute in Alabama,
and McKinley did so in December.
He and the U. S. Attorney General John Griggs
worked with the black Congressman George White to get legislation against lynching,
and the Judiciary Committee did nothing.
Ida Wells-Barnett criticized Washington and McKinley,
and the former black Congressman Henry Cheatham of North Carolina
defended the President and Washington.
American anti-imperialists gathered at Chicago, and on October 18
they approved a platform for an Anti-Imperialist League in America that began,
“We hold that the policy known as imperialism is
hostile to liberty and tends toward militarism.”
They concluded,
Our defense is in the spirit which prizes liberty
as the heritage of all men in all lands.
Those who deny freedom to others
deserve it not for themselves,
and under a just God cannot long retain it.39
On October 30 the peace commissioner, Senator Frye of Maine,
had wired McKinley that negotiations might fail if they did not offer
$10 million to $20 million as compensation for the Philippines.
The next day the commissioner Rufus Day announced that the U. S. intended
to annex all of the Philippine Islands and would provide compensation.
Frye suggested paying $10 million “in gold.”
On November 3 Spain’s Foreign Minister Almodóvar wrote
“that the intention of the Americans is to annex everything of value
in the colonial empire of Spain with the least sacrifice possible.”40
On November 21 commissioner Day gave the Spanish commissioners
an ultimatum that they must accept $20 million for the Philippines with no more claims,
though Spain would be allowed commercial access to the islands for ten years.
Four days later Almodóvar ordered the five Spanish commissioners
to sign the peace treaty and accept the $20 million which they did on December 10.
Anti-imperialists accused McKinley of purchasing 10 million Filipinos for $2 a head.
In the final treaty Spain also ceded Puerto Rico and Guam to the United States.
Prisoners were to be released.
Freedom of religion was to be guaranteed,
and the United States assumed all of Cuba’s financial obligations during the occupation.
The New York Herald took a poll of 498 newspapers, and 305 favored the treaty.
The nationalist movement led by Aguinaldo had begun working
on a constitution at Malolos on September 15, and they adopted it on November 29.
They declared a free and independent Philippine Republic protecting equal rights
with an Assembly of Representatives that elects the President with executive power
and with a Supreme Court of Justice.
On December 4 the New York Times printed an article
by the British newspaper editor W. T. Stead who wrote,
The annexation of the Philippine Islands
may seem but a small thing, but it is decisive.
When Eve ate the apple it was but the act of a moment.
But it barred against her forever the gates of Paradise.
What the Old World says is that the New World has now
eaten of the forbidden fruit, and that the flaming sword …
will prevent all return to the peaceful tradition
of the fathers of the Republic.41
In his Second Annual Message to Congress on December 5
McKinley began his 41-page Message by claiming,
Notwithstanding the added burdens rendered necessary
by the war, our people rejoice in a very satisfactory
and steadily increasing degree of prosperity, evidenced by
the largest volume of business ever recorded.42
He talked at length about the pacification of Cuba.
Then he reviewed the wars in Puerto Rico and in the far-off Philippine Islands.
He reported that the total U. S. service men killed
was 280 in the Army and 17 in the Navy.
He did not mention how many died of diseases nor how many people
the U. S. Army and Navy had killed.
McKinley summarized the Protocol that the Peace Commissioners had negotiated.
Puerto Rico and many islands were to be ceded to the United States.
On the first of December 101,165 officers and men
had been discharged from the service.
He noted that the U. S. was facilitating arbitration
of a dispute between Argentina and Chile.
He reported that 22 striking miners had been killed
by law enforcement at Lattimer, Pennsylvania.
He discussed international trade and improved relations in Central America.
He said his Nicaragua Canal Commission had nearly completed its work,
and he considered a maritime highway indispensable.
He reported on continuing trade with China.
He summarized commercial relations with France, Germany, and Britain.
The sovereignty of the Hawaiian Islands had been
transferred in August to the United States.
He discussed various issues with Mexico.
Russia’s Czar Nicholas II proposed “a general reduction of the vast military
establishments that weigh so heavily upon many peoples in time of peace.”
The Swiss Government promoted the mission of the International Red Cross.
A U. S. envoy was sent to the Ottoman Porte to resolve controversies with Turkey.
The Treasury Secretary estimated that the
deficit for the fiscal year ending on 30 June 1899 would be $112 million.
McKinley approved several increases in U. S. Navy spending.
He said that Indians had made progress and that the only outbreak was by the
Chippewas in Minnesota, which had occurred on October 5, and was suppressed.
On December 13 General Otis learned that Filipinos were attacking Spaniards
at Iliolo, and he sent Brigadier General Marcus Miller with 2,500 men;
but Dewey refused to send ships until McKinley
authorized the venture to “protect life and property” in Iloilo.
The Spanish garrison surrendered to the Filipinos on Christmas Day,
and their commander refused to let Miller’s forces land without orders from Aguinaldo.
He warned Otis that an attack on Iloilo would open hostilities,
and the American forces remained on the ships off Iloilo for six weeks.
President McKinley announced on December 21 that
he wanted to “win the confidence, respect and affection” of Filipinos
by coming “not as invaders and conquerors but as friends” and to show them
that “the mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation.”43
Yet he instructed his commanders to claim sovereignty
over all of the Philippines, proclaiming,
The military government heretofore maintained
by the United States in the city, harbor and bay of Manila,
is to be extended with all possible dispatch
to the whole of the ceded territory.44
Otis removed the language claiming sovereignty, and McKinley’s
original proclamation was made public and angered Filipino leaders.
Aguinaldo proposed a united Philippines under U. S. protection
with an American-Filipino Commission to draft a treaty of alliance,
and his offer was ignored.
Americans wanted to use the Philippines to develop business in Asia,
to provide naval and military bases, and to open it to Protestant missionaries.
On 4 January 1899 General Elwell S. Otis proclaimed himself
Military Governor of the Philippines.
He promised to support and protect those who
“cooperate with the government of the United States,”
and he aimed to appoint “such Filipinos as may be acceptable
to the supreme authorities at Washington.”45
In a speech at the University of Chicago on that day Carl Schurz said,
I warn the American people that a democracy cannot
so deny its faith as to the vital conditions of its being—
it cannot long play the king over subject populations
without creating within itself ways of thinking
and habits of action most dangerous to its own vitality.46
The next day Aguinaldo responded to that proclamation by asserting,
I protest a thousand times and with all the energy I possess
against such authority….
I likewise protest, in the name of the Filipino people,
against such intrusion, because, by reposing in me
their vote of confidence as president of the nation,
they have vested me with power
to maintain its liberty and independence at all costs.47
He entreated General Otis “to desist from his rash enterprise,
but no attention was paid.”
On January 8 Aguinaldo declared,
My government cannot remain indifferent in view of such
violent and aggressive seizure of a portion of its territory
by a nation which has arrogated to itself
the title of “champion of oppressed nations.” …
I denounce these acts before the world,
in order that the conscience of mankind may pronounce
its infallible verdict as to who are the true
oppressors of nations and tormentors of human kind.48
He warned that if the Americans forcibly took the Visayan islands,
hostilities would begin; he prepared for war.
On January 9 Senator George Hoar of Massachusetts rejected
Louisiana’s Senator Orville Platt’s idea of “unlimited sovereignty.”
Hoar was an anti-imperialist and warned against the dangers of disunion
and “the greed and lust of empire,” and he spoke in opposition to the Treaty of Paris.
He referred to Senator Orville Platt and said,
The Monroe Doctrine is gone.
Every European nation, every European alliance,
has the right to acquire dominion in this hemisphere
when we acquire it in the other….
Our fathers dreaded a standing army;
but the Senator’s doctrine, put in practice anywhere,
now or hereafter, renders necessary a standing army,
to be reinforced by a powerful navy.
Our fathers denounced the subjection of any people
whose judges were appointed
or whose salaries were paid by a foreign power;
but the Senator’s doctrine requires us to send
to a foreign people judges, not of their own selection,
appointed and paid by us.
The Senator’s doctrine, whenever it shall be put in practice,
will entail upon us a national debt larger than
any now existing on the face of the earth,
larger than any ever known in history.49
On January 10 two commissions appointed by Otis and Aguinaldo
met to try to find mutual understanding; and the American officers
stalled without negotiating so that their reinforcements could arrive.
Otis moved the Nebraska regiment into the eastern suburb of Manila
at the strategic juncture of the Pasig and San Juan rivers
inside territory claimed by the Filipinos.
On January 12 General Miles testified before the Dodge Commission,
and he accused the Commissary General Charles P. Egan of using loathed
canned beef that was treated with chemicals so much
that it was called “embalmed beef.”
Roosevelt had said that the meat at Santiago was
“at best tasteless and at worst nauseating.”
Egan called Miles a liar.
A court martial found Egan guilty of conduct unbecoming of an officer.
McKinley reduced his sentence so that Egan could keep his pension.
The final report of the Dodge Commission did not find evidence
for the accusation made by Miles.
Aguinaldo had appointed Apolinario Mabini premier of his cabinet
and secretary of Foreign Affairs on January 1,
and the Constitution was promulgated on January 21 at Malolos west of Manila.
Two days later the Philippine Republic was proclaimed.
Aguinaldo was inaugurated as president, and Mabini became prime minister.
He released Spanish prisoners except for soldiers,
and he allowed all foreigners including Spaniards to engage in business.
The learned (ilustrados) dominated the government and
restricted suffrage to leading citizens even in local elections.
The land confiscated from friars was turned over to local chiefs and men of means.
Aguinaldo later claimed that this was “the first crystallization of democracy” in Asia.
On January 25 the United States Senate resolved
to vote on the Paris treaty on February 6.
Minister Plenipotentiary Felipe Agoncillo presented to them a moderate memorial
claiming Philippine independence on January 30 that included these points:
1. I respectfully submit that the United States, not having
received from the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands
authority to pass laws affecting them,
its legislation as to their welfare
possesses no binding force upon my people….
6. Spain could not deliver possession of the Philippines to
the United States, she having been ousted by their people,
and in fact at the present moment the United States holds
only an entrenched camp, controlling 143 square miles,
with 300,000 people, while the Philippine Republic
represents the destinies of nearly 10,000,000 souls,
scattered over an area approaching 200,000 square miles….
9. Secretaries of State of your country
(including Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Pinckney) have denied
the right of an ally of America to acquire by conquest
from Great Britain any American territory
while America is struggling for independence.
The United States Supreme Court has sustained this view.50
Rudyard Kipling wrote his imperialist poem “The White Man’s Burden”
to influence the debate in the U. S. Senate.
Many Senators opposed the treaty as being unfair to the Filipinos;
and after they were told (falsely) that the Filipinos had started hostilities on February 4,
the Senate ratified the treaty two days later.
Mabini refuted the claims that the Filipinos had started the hostilities,
noting that
at the time most senior Filipino officers were
away from Manila for a celebration at Malolos.
On February 4 the American sentry William Grayson shot a Filipino soldier,
and then he and another American killed two more Filipinos.
Col. John Stotsenburg immediately ordered his Nebraska volunteers to move forward.
After hearing of the fighting, Aguinaldo ordered his men to stop.
The next day at 4 a.m. Admiral Dewey ordered his navy artillery to begin firing.
The American armies led by General Arthur MacArthur advanced
and killed about 3,000 Filipino soldiers while 59 Americans were killed.
Aguinaldo sent General Carlos Mario de la Torres to General Otis
to propose peace talks and a demilitarized zone.
Otis replied that the fighting had begun and “must go on to the grim end.”
The next day Aguinaldo “published the outbreak of hostilities
between the Philippine forces and the American forces of occupation in Manila,
unjustly and unexpectedly provoked by the latter.”51
He ordered an investigation, and the Americans did not examine how the war started.
Prime minister Apolinario Mabini hoped that Filipino resistance and sacrifice
would remind the Americans of their struggle
against the British for their own independence.
He also accused President McKinley of provoking armed conflict in order to
get the Senate to ratify the treaty on February 6.
On February 5 South Dakota’s Senator Pettigrew said,
We could have had no possible difficulties
with the people of the Philippines if we had given to them
the honest assurance that we did not propose
to overthrow their newly established liberties.52
The U. S. Senate defeated an amendment that would have put the Philippines
on a path to independence that had been promised to Cuba.
On February 6 the U. S. Senate ratified the treaty 57-27.
The next day Georgia’s Senator Augustus Bacon offered a resolution
to pacify the Philippine Islands by renouncing permanent sovereignty
and by creating a native government.
The Senate vote on his resolution was a tie
until Vice President Hobart cast the defeating vote.
Then Louisiana’s Senator Samuel McEnery proposed a resolution that
denied citizenship to Filipinos, prohibited annexation or statehood,
and recognized permanent sovereignty by the United States,
and on a narrow vote the Senate passed this.
On February 16 McKinley spoke at a dinner for Boston’s Home Market Club
with 2,000 dining and 3,800 spectators.
He acknowledged the opposition to the cession of the Philippines,
and he argued that he could not leave them
“to the anarchy and chaos of no protectorate at all.”
When he concluded “that neither their aspirations nor ours can be realized
until our authority is acknowledged and unquestioned,” there was loud applause.
The Filipinos lacked weapons and trained soldiers and won few victories.
Their General Martin Delgado ordered the city of Iloilo burned
so that the Americans could not use it as a base.
The American troops advanced and took over
Visayas, Iloilo, and Cebu by the end of February.
The leaders on Negros wanted to be under an American protectorate,
and they gained permission from Otis on February 21
to help defend their own republic;
he created the Visayan Military District on March 1.
The U. S. Congress authorized 65,000 regulars and 35,000 two-year recruits
to fight for a standing army, and McKinley signed the bill on March 2.
The next day he asked the Walker Commission to study a route in Panama for a canal.
The American army reached Malolos on March 30
while the Philippine government retreated to San Isidro in Nueva Ecija.
The Schurman Commission had arrived in Manila on March 4.
They interviewed Filipino landlords, money-lenders, and businessmen in Manila
without trying to learn the views of the Filipinos who were resisting the Americans,
and they published their report on April 4.
Mabini sent a message on April 29 to the Commission asking for a
three-month cease-fire in order to learn Filipino public opinion,
and
the Americans rejected his offer.
The Cortes did not ratify the treaty, and Spain’s constitution
allowed the Queen Regent to ratify it with her signature on March 19.
This Treaty of Paris went into effect on April 11.
The pragmatic philosopher William James opposed imperialism,
and after the ratification he wrote in a letter,
“The way the country puked up its ancient principles
at the first touching of temptation was sickening.”53
In the battle of Calumpit on April 25-27 about 3,000 Filipino fighters
lost only some 200 dead as they killed about
700 American volunteers from Kansas, Utah, Montana, and Nebraska.
The next day Filipino officers asked General Arthur MacArthur for
a two-week armistice to negotiate with the Americans
who would not grant independence.
On May 5 the Schurman Commission proposed what they called “autonomy”
for the Philippines, and the U. S. President would hold absolute power.
About fifteen remaining members of the Malolos Congress met,
accepted the offer, and asked Aguinaldo to appoint a new cabinet.
He agreed.
Prime Minister Mabini resigned on May 7 and was replaced by Pedro Paterno.
Pardo de Tavera founded La Democracia in May as a pro-American newspaper;
General Otis had it shut down, and he charged
the American editor of Freedom with treason and sedition.
On May 29 Otis appointed Cayetano Arellano chief justice of the Supreme Court
with Florentino Torres and Victorino Mapa as associate justices.
Under U. S. direction Arellano organized the lower courts.
Arellano and Tavera were early supporters of American annexation.
On June 10 the U. S. Generals Henry Lawton and Lloyd Wheaton
moved their soldiers south from Manila to Cavite, and the U. S. Navy supported them.
General Otis censored the American war correspondents,
and on July 17 they sent a cable from Hong Kong to correct
the distorted views being dispatched by Otis.
This aroused the Anti-Imperialist League in America.
Paterno and others hoped that the Democratic Party in the U. S.
would grant them their rights.
Negros submitted a constitution to President McKinley on July 20,
and the poor Babaylanes revolted against the elite government,
burned their haciendas, and destroyed their sugar mills.
Schurman reported to McKinley in July that most of the Filipinos
on the islands other than Luzon wanted peace and would accept the American
sovereignty except for the Tagalogs who controlled much of the population.
Reporters complained that General Otis censored and delayed the news.
Thomas Platt on July 20 in the New York Tribune criticized anti-war Americans
for getting “immoderate satisfaction” from Americans’ military problems,
and he accused them of deceiving Aguinaldo’s rebels by suggesting that
the Democrats would defeat McKinley in the next election
and then grant Philippine independence.
By July many critics were fed up with the incompetence of War Secretary Alger.
As with President Lincoln’s War Secretary Simon Cameron,
Russell Alger had been McKinley’s only major political appointment.
Concern over his ineptitude grew during the Philippine War,
and McKinley persuaded him to resign on July 19.
The great presidential historian Henry Adams wrote in a letter,
The President long ago set Alger aside,
and this is one reason why he cannot remove him,
because Alger is really not responsible, but McKinley is.54
Another reason why McKinley replaced Alger was because
he was planning to run for the U. S. Senate with the backing of
Michigan’s Gov. Hazen Pingree who criticized McKinley’s Philippine policy.
The President had the ailing Vice President Hobart
persuade his close friend Alger to resign.
On August 1 President McKinley replaced the unpopular War Secretary Alger
with the skilled lawyer Elihu Root of New York.
New York’s Republican power broker Tom Platt did not want Root,
and he accepted some credit for the choice.
Platt wrote in his Autobiography,
Elihu Root is one of the keenest, ablest
and squarest opponents I have ever met….
I won’t go across the street to help him,
and I won’t get out of my chair to hurt him.55
Root gained the assistance of the Attorney General Griggs by suggesting
they specialize on “colonial business.”
General Otis asked for 60,000 soldiers,
and in August the War Department called for ten regiments of volunteers.
McKinley sent four black regiments to fight the rebellion.
General Arthur MacArthur at a battle at Angeles led 2,500 troops
that inflicted about 200 casualties on Filipinos while only two Americans were killed.
In the south the Americans had taken over Jolo in May,
and those Filipinos signed a treaty with the Americans on August 20.
Aguinaldo retreated to the mountains and went north
until he reached Palanan in the province of Isabela on September 6.
On the 21st the Washington Post reported that
Senator William Mason of Illinois criticized the war in the Philippines saying,
I shall continue my opposition to the war upon the Filipinos.
I would sooner resign my seat
than treat a dog the way we are treating those poor people.
I am ashamed of my country.56
On September 29 General Otis appointed Tavera to the Board of Health.
Two days later Aguinaldo made Tavera his director of diplomacy,
though he later resigned and went over to the Americans.
The Americans began a major offensive on October 12,
and their deployed troops increased to 42,794 on November 5.
From May through October the Philippine War
cost Americans $50 million and over a thousand lives.
After Tarlac fell on November 12, Aguinaldo went to Northern Luzon.
Filipinos organized their first autonomous government
on the island of Negros in early November.
On November 21 McKinley told Methodist ministers that
the Philippines came “as a gift from the gods,” and at first he wanted only Manila;
and he ended up believing the most realistic solution was to acquire all the islands.
He considered it a humanitarian obligation
to “uplift and civilize” them through education.
The young Filipino General Gregorio del Pilar tried to defend
the mountain pass at Pasong Triad with sixty men,
and the Americans killed him and defeated them on December 2.
Mabini, Paterno, and other cabinet officials were captured on December 10.
On the 19th the U. S. General Henry Ware Lawton, who was famous
for having captured the Apache chief Geronimo,
was killed by a sniper while confronting forces under General Lucerio Geronimo.
Aguinaldo let the women leave,
and they surrendered to the Americans on Christmas Day.
By the end of 1899 the U. S. had about 64,000 troops in the Philippines.
In January 1900 the U. S. Army defeated
about 800 insurgents at Taal in southern Luzon.
That month the Schurman Commission released a report which recommended that
the President appoint a colonial governor over all the Philippine Islands
with American and native advisors.
They suggested a legislature that was partly elected with others appointed.
The governor could veto some things, and provincial governors were to be appointed.
McKinley in late January invited William Howard Taft,
a U. S. Circuit Court Judge in Cincinnati, to the White House
and asked him to take the top job in the Philippines.
Taft admitted that he opposed McKinley’s policy there
because it was contrary to American traditions and a distraction.
McKinley said that the Philippines belonged to America, and he wanted it governed
wisely and compassionately until the Filipinos could learn how to govern themselves.
War Secretary Root and Navy Secretary Long joined them.
McKinley said he felt he could trust Taft, who did not want to deal with them,
more than a man who did.
Root challenged Taft, saying,
Here is something that will test you, something in
the way of effort, and struggle, and the question is,
will you take the harder or the easier task?57
Taft accepted the position and later said that McKinley stood by him.
Root and Taft wrote “Instructions of the President
for the Philippine Commission” that McKinley edited.
The 12-page memorandum was for War Secretary Root who was to supervise
the Military Governor and Taft’s 5-man Philippine Commission.
General Otis had an army of 60,000 men by February.
On March 4 the New York Times had reported that
the Filipino insurrection was adopting guerilla warfare on a large scale.
On May 4 General Otis reported that in April
the enemy had lost 1,721 who were killed, wounded, or captured.
He believed the insurrection was over, and he asked to be relieved.
That put General Arthur MacArthur in command on May 5 as the Military Governor,
and he requested 100,000 soldiers to pacify the Filipinos.
Taft and the second Philippine Commission had sailed from San Francisco on April 17,
and they reached Manila on June 3 to organize a civilian government for the Philippines.
General MacArthur got permission to offer amnesty,
which he proclaimed on June 21.
Before it ended three months later, about 5,000 mostly poor Filipinos surrendered.
Paterno and others, and not Mabini, took the oath of allegiance.
General Artemio Ricarte planned an uprising in Manila; the plot was discovered,
and he was captured on July 1 and sent to Guam six months later.
Former members of the Katipunan led by Aurelio Tolentino organized
the secret society Junta de Amigos; they followed the orders of Aguinaldo
and attacked Americans until they were crushed.
At Indianapolis on August 8 the Democrats’
presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan said,
“The wages of sin is death.”
And so with the nation.
It is of age and it can do what it pleases;
it can spurn the traditions of the past;
it can repudiate the principles upon which the nation rests;
it can employ force instead of reason;
it can substitute might for right;
it can conquer weaker people; it can exploit their lands,
appropriate their property and kill their people;
but it cannot repeal the moral law or escape the punishment
decreed for the violation of human rights.58
Three days later “A Powerful Democratic Argument against Imperialism”
by Victor Gillam appeared in Judge with a cartoon on the cover of three men
(Bryan as a court jester, a Chinese Boxer, and a Filipino)
each with a sign saying “I am against American Imperialism.”
On August 10 Aguinaldo gave Apolinario Mabini
full power to negotiate with the Americans.
He held discussions with Taft, but they could not agree.
On September 1 the Taft Commission assumed the legislative powers
to tax, fix tariffs, and establish law courts.
Mabini told Aguinaldo in November that
the imperialistic Republican McKinley had been re-elected in November 1900.
On December 20 General MacArthur proclaimed martial law and announced
that anyone helping guerrillas would be severely punished,
warning that brigands, “war rebels” and traitors
would not be given the “privileges of prisoners of war.”
Mabini criticized Americans in El Liberal and was arrested again in January 1901.
In February some Spanish mestizos organized the Partido Conservador,
and they also acknowledged American sovereignty.
Rafael Palma founded El Renacimiento in 1901,
and his newspaper criticized dishonesty and corruption in government.
The Taft Commission’s report argued that the Philippines
needed civil government in order to facilitate American investment.
On January 2 Taft wired Secretary of War Elihu Root,
urging passage of the Spooner bill so that public franchises
could be granted, public lands sold, and mining claims allowed.
The Spooner amendment began the legal colonization of the Philippines.
On January 21 the Philippine Commission established
a public school system with free primary education.
Taft announced that his policy was “the Philippines for the Filipinos,”
and it also was to be profitable for American merchants and manufacturers.
In the first four months of 1901 the Taft regime
set up 283 committees in provincial towns.
In August the ship Thomas brought five hundred American teachers
to the Philippines, and they were called Thomasites.
They taught English and in the first two years under Fred Atkinson
they emphasized vocational training.
Aguinaldo stayed in contact with guerrilla leaders,
and in March he still was fighting for independence.
General Frederick Funston used four former insurgents
and 78 friendly Filipino scouts disguised as guerrilla fighters
escorting four U. S. officers as prisoners so that
they could march through the country for three days to get to Aguinaldo.
Then on March 23 they attacked his headquarters,
killed two bodyguards, and took him into custody.
Aguinaldo swore allegiance to the United States on April 1,
and on the 19th he proclaimed,
The complete termination of hostilities and a lasting peace
are not only desirable but absolutely essential
to the welfare of the Philippines.59
On July 4 the Americans established a government with Taft
as the first civil Governor-General,
and two weeks later they formed the Philippine Constabulary.
This national police of 6,000 men had many members from the hated Guardia Civil,
and the Constabulary was led by American officers until 1917.
Nearly seventy American soldiers had been punished for crimes against Filipinos
in the first year of the war.
On 9 February 1899 the Dodge Commission completed its report
on the War Department in nine volumes.
They found that the former War Secretary Alger was
a poor manager and incompetent, and he was not corrupt.
President McKinley and the Congress in March worked on a bill
to provide $2 million for Puerto Rico, and they crafted a bill
that included tariffs and free trade that McKinley signed on April 12.
On May 29 McKinley used an executive order to allow some civil service
employees to choose their private secretaries and confidential clerks.
The U. S. Congress adjourned on June 7.
In mid-September a conference on “Trusts and Combinations,
Their uses and Abuses—Railway, Labor, Industrial, and Commercial”
held a national conference at Chicago.
William Jennings Bryan declared,
“Monopoly in private hands is indefensible from any standpoint and intolerable.”60
Admiral Dewey returned to the United States, and on September 29
his flagship Olympia led the Atlantic fleet up the Hudson River.
Some wanted Dewey to run for President, and he declined.
Later he changed his mind; but Dewey’s announcement that
he thought the presidency was not “very difficult” to fill was not favorably received.
In the fall President McKinley traveled to the Midwest to help Republican candidates,
and Gov. Theodore Roosevelt of New York did the same.
On October 24 Booker T. Washington wrote to McKinley
asking him to support a black exhibit at the Paris Exposition,
and he suggested Tuskegee’s Vice President Thomas J. Calloway as its head.
McKinley agreed, and Calloway enlisted W. E. B. DuBois, his former classmate
at Fisk University and Daniel Murray, assistant librarian of Congress.
They employed students from black colleges.
The progress of blacks since the end of slavery was displayed,
and DuBois included the Georgia Black Codes in his study of Georgia’s history.
McKinley met annually with Afro-American leaders,
though he was often criticized by Ida Wells-Barnett and by DuBois
because the President could not stop lynching and disenfranchisement of blacks.
Yet Bishop Alexander Walters, a former slave, accepted that that was difficult,
and he commended McKinley for appointing black officers in the army.
On October 31 McKinley learned that his close friend and best advisor,
Vice President Hobart, was seriously ill,
and he died at Paterson, New Jersey on November 21.
The President, his cabinet and scores of Congressmen including 60 senators
attended the funeral at Paterson.
Maine’s Senator William Frye was President pro tempore of the U. S. Senate,
and he replaced Hobart in presiding over the Senate but not as Vice President.
On November 17 Treasury Secretary Lyman Gage estimated that
the surplus for the current fiscal year would be about $80 million.
President McKinley began his Third Message to Congress on December 5
by suggesting mourning for the late Vice President Hobart.
In this 50-page Message McKinley wrote on the problem of trusts and monopolies:
It is universally conceded that combinations which engross
or control the market of any particular kind of merchandise
or commodity necessary to the general community,
by suppressing natural and ordinary competition, whereby
prices are unduly enhanced to the general consumer,
are obnoxious not only to the common law
but also to the public welfare.
There must be a remedy for the evils
involved in such organizations.
If the present law can be extended more certainly
to control or check these monopolies or trusts
it should be done without delay.
Whatever power the Congress possesses over this most
important subject should be promptly ascertaind and asserted.61
McKinley wrote about the invasion of the Philippines:
This was the unhappy condition of affairs which confronted
our Commissioners on their arrival in Manila.
They had come with the hope and intention of cooperating
with Admiral Dewey and Major General Otis in establishing
peace and order in the archipelago and the largest measure
of self-government compatible with the true welfare of the people.
What they actually found can best be set forth in their own words:
Deplorable as war is, the one in which we are now
engaged was unavoidable by us.
We were attacked by a bold, adventurous, and enthusiastic army.
No alternative was left to us except ignominious retreat.
It is not to be conceived of that any American would have
sanctioned the surrender of Manila to the insurgents.
Our obligations to other nations and to the friendly Filipinos
and to ourselves and our flag demanded
that force should be met by force.
Whatever the future of the Philippines may be, there is no course
open to us now except the prosecution of the war until the
insurgents are reduced to submission.
The Commission is of the opinion that there has been no time
since the destruction of the Spanish squadron by Admiral Dewey
when it was possible to withdraw our forces from the island
either with honor to ourselves or with safety to the inhabitants.
The course thus clearly indicated has been unflinchingly pursued.
The rebellion must be put down.62
He concluded this long Message with these two paragraphs:
The 14th of December will be the One Hundredth
Anniversary of the death of Washington.
For a hundred years the Republic has had the priceless
advantage of the lofty standard of character and conduct
which he bequeathed to the American people.
It is an inheritance which time, instead of wasting,
continually increases and enriches.
We may justly hope that in the years to come the benignant
influence of the Father of his Country may be even more
potent for good than in the century which is drawing to a close.
I have been glad to learn that in many parts of the country
the people will fittingly observe this historic anniversary.
Presented to this Congress are great opportunities.
With them come great responsibilities.
The power confided to us increases the weight of our obligations
to the people, and we must be profoundly sensible of them
as we contemplate the new and grave problems which confront us.
Aiming only at the public good, we cannot err.
A right interpretation of the people's will and of duty cannot fail
to insure wise measures for the welfare of the islands which
have come under the authority of the United States, and inure
to the common interest and lasting honor of our country.
Never has this Nation had more abundant cause than during the
past year for thankfulness to God for manifold blessings and
mercies, for which we make reverent acknowledgment.63
McKinley claimed that U. S. exports and imports were the highest ever in history.
The Treasury Secretary Lyman Gage had estimated that the surplus for the year
about to end would be about $40 million,
though the previous fiscal year had a deficit of $89 million.
He urged the Congress to modify the Banking Act
so that national banks could organize with a capital of $25,000.
Yet he left it to the Congress or the states to take the initiative on these concerns
because the U. S. Supreme Court had decided that federal jurisdiction
on trusts only extended to interstate commerce.
In early 1900 the U. S. House of Representatives would vote 273-1
to improve enforcement of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act
and the bill did not make it through the Senate.
McKinley in his message also discussed
numerous events and issues with various countries.
He reported that the Walker Commission
was exploring the possibility of a canal in Panama.
He maintained neutrality toward the conflict
between Britain and the Boer States of Africa.
He said he was faithful to the precept of avoiding “entangling alliances.”
He hoped for a telegraphic connection with Japan and Manila.
A new treaty in February 1899 was improving relations with Mexico.
The U. S. had advocated arbitrating conflicts
at The Hague Disarmament Conference.
He discussed issues related to U. S. rights at the harbor of Pago Pago in Samoa.
He reported that friendly relations had been restored with Spain
which left Puerto Rico in October.
He described progress that was being made in Cuba,
and the U. S. had spent $1,417,554 for 5,493,000 rations
the U. S. Army delivered to the destitute.
The U. S. also used $2,547,750 to pay $75 to each Cuban soldier
who turned in a weapon to the U. S. Army.
Reciprocity treaties were made with British colonies in the Caribbean.
He discussed how many U. S. troops were in the Philippines in 1899
and how they had been reduced to much smaller numbers in Cuba and Puerto Rico
where he planned to end all custom tariffs
to give Puerto Rico full access to U. S. markets.
He reported how much the government was spending
subsidizing railroads in the United States.
A large portion of this message discussed the U. S. territories in the
Philippines, Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico.
He urged free education as “the best preceptor for citizenship.”
He declared that “lynchings must not be tolerated.”
General Leonard Wood had been McKinley’s physician in the White House,
and in December he sent Wood to replace General John Brooke in Cuba
to get people ready for a republican government
with a good school system and better courts.
Wood won over Cubans by making use of their veterans.
He expanded schools, appointed honest judges, and worked on
improving food, medical supplies, hospitals, sanitation, and roads.
In May 1900 he had persuaded the Surgeon General George Sternberg
to appoint Walter Reed to an army board in Havana where
he investigated yellow fever and learned that it was caused by mosquitoes.
Wood had the Army’s inspector general study the finances of Cuba’s post office,
and the finance chief Charles Neely quickly departed
and was suspected of embezzling over $130,000.
McKinley ordered Neely arrested.
Estes Rathbone was the postmaster in Cuba,
and he was charged with theft and embezzlement.
Both Neely and Rathbone were convicted and were sentenced to ten years.
On 13 February 1900 New York’s Gov. Theodore Roosevelt
announced that he would not accept the Republican nomination for Vice President.
New York’s Republican power-broker Tom Platt had found Roosevelt uncooperative.
The journalist Lincoln Steffens revealed that although corporations would
publicly oppose Roosevelt, they were not going to donate to his campaign.
Mark Hanna considered him erratic and “unsafe,”
and Hanna expected to be the chairman of the Republican National Committee again.
He was supporting Cornelius Bliss who had been McKinley’s Interior Secretary
for nearly two years while he was also chairman of New York’s Republican Party.
Roosevelt told McKinley that he did not want to be his Vice President
and was surprised when the President agreed with him.
War Secretary Root also opposed Roosevelt.
McKinley compromised and accepted Senator Hoar’s amendment
that restricted the Taft Commission’s authority to give out business franchises.
On February 23 the black Rep. George Henry White of North Carolina
defended his bill to make lynching a Federal crime, saying,
Our constitutional rights have been trodden under foot;
our right of franchise in most every one of the
original slave States has been virtually taken away from us,
and during the time of our freedom fully 50,000 of my race
have been ignominiously murdered by mobs,
not less than 1 per cent of whom
have been made to answer for their crimes.64
On March 1 Ohio’s Senator Joseph Foraker suggested a compromise
by levying 15% of the Dingley rates for two years on money spent in Puerto Rico,
and it became law as the Organic Act on April 12.
Secretary of War Root was the main author of this law that established
a civilian government in Puerto Rico with a governor and an Executive Council
with 11 members appointed by the U. S. President, a House of Representatives
elected by Puerto Ricans, and a judicial system with a Supreme Court
and a United States District Court.
The U. S. Congress passed the Gold Standard Act on March 13,
and President McKinley signed it the next day.
It created a gold reserve of $150 million, and the government
was to redeem greenbacks and Federal notes with gold.
His currency policy made it easier for new banks
to get started in the South and Midwest.
After Germany had obtained rights in China,
Russia demanded rights at Port Arthur and a railway in Manchuria.
Britain, France, and Italy wanted coaling stations.
Charles Beresford was an expert on China, and he wrote The Break-up of China
suggesting an “open door” for western nations there.
He had visited Washington in 1899, and Hay introduced him to McKinley.
Alfred Hippsley, who inspected Chinese maritime customs for Britain,
agreed with Beresford, and Hippsley was introduced to Secretary Hay
by Hay’s Far Eastern advisor William Rockhill.
Hippsley, Rockhill, and Hay proposed that all the powers recognize their
common rights in China with tariffs collected by Chinese officials
that would be equal for all and that the powers would not discriminate
against each other on harbor dues or railroad charges.
McKinley liked the justice of the policy.
On 9 September 1899 Hay had sent their plan to the capitals of
Germany, Britain, Russia, Japan, Italy, and France.
Hay received acceptance from all of them by January 1900,
and on March 20 he announced that all the great powers had agreed
to the Open Door policy on trading with China.
A secret Chinese society Yìhéquán (Righteous and Harmonious Fists)
that westerners called “the Boxers” reacted against exploitation by foreign nations
in May by attacking foreign missionaries and Chinese converts to Christianity.
In June they besieged their embassies in Beijing.
The six European nations along with Austria-Hungary and the United States
formed the Eight-Nation Alliance,
and they managed to liberate most of their diplomats.
On June 15 Governor-General Taft reported to McKinley
that the military was making progress in the Philippines.
On that day McKinley and his cabinet met and ordered more ships
to go from the Philippines to China with an infantry regiment.
On June 18 Chinese Empress Cixi declared war on all eight of the allied nations.
McKinley on 12 July 1900 made this speech
accepting the nomination of the Republican Party:
Senator Lodge and Gentlemen of the Notification Committee:
The message which you bring to me is one of signal honor.
It is also a summons to duty.
A single nomination for the office of President by a great part
which in 32 years out of 40 has been triumphant at national
elections is a distinction which I gratefully cherish.
To receive unanimous renomination by the same party is an
expression of regard and a pledge of continued confidence
for which it is difficult to make adequate acknowledgment.
If anything exceeds the honor of the office of President of
the United States it is the responsibility which attaches to it.
Having been invested with both, I do not underappraise either.
Anyone who has borne the anxieties and burdens of the
Presidential office, especially in time of National trial,
cannot contemplate assuming it a second time without
profoundly realizing the severe exactions and the solemn
obligations which it imposes, and this feeling is accentuated
by the momentous problems which now press for settlement.
If my Countrymen shall confirm the action of the convention
at our National election in November I shall, craving Divine
guidance, undertake the exalted trust, to administer it for the
interest and honor of the country and the well-being of the
new peoples who have become the objects of our care.
The declaration of principles adopted by the convention
has my hearty approval.
At some future date I will consider its subjects in detail
and will by letter communicate to your Chairman a more
formal acceptance of the nomination.
On a like occasion four years ago I said:
"The party that supplied by legislation the vast revenues for
the conduct of our greatest war, that promptly restored the
credit of the country at its close; that from its abundant revenues
paid off a large share of the debt incurred by this war;
and that resumed specie payments and placed our paper currency
upon a sound and enduring basis, can be safely trusted to preserve
both our credit and currency with honor, stability, and inviolability.
The American people hold the financial honor of our
Government as sacred as our flag, and can be relied
upon to guard it with the same sleepless vigilance.
They hold its preservation above party fealty and have
often demonstrated that party ties avail nothing when
the spotless credit of our country is threatened.
"The dollar paid to the farmer, the wage-earner, and the
pensioner must continue forever equal in purchasing and
debt paying power to the dollar paid to any Government creditor.
"Our industrial supremacy, our productive capacity, our business
and commercial prosperity, our labor and its rewards, our National
credit and currency, our proud financial honor, and our splendid free
citizenship, the birthright of every American, are all involved in th
pending campaign, and thus every home in the land is directly and
intimately connected with their proper settlement.
Our domestic trade must be won back and our idle working
people employed in gainful occupations at American wages.
Our home market must be restored to its proud rank of first
in the world, and our foreign trade, so precipitately cut off by
adverse National legislation, reopened on fair and equitable
terms for our surplus agricultural and manufacturing products.
Public confidence must be resumed and the skill, energy and
capital of our country find ample employment at home.
The Government of the United States must raise money
enough to meet both its current expenses and increasing needs.
Its revenues should be so raised as to protect the
material interests of our people, with the lightest
possible drain upon their resources and maintaining
that high standard of civilization which has distinguished
our country for more than a century of its existence.
The National credit, which has thus far fortunately resisted
every assault upon it, must and will be upheld and strengthened.
If sufficient revenues are provided for the support
of the Government there will be no necessity for
borrowing money and increasing the public debt."
Three and one-half years of legislation and administration
have been concluded since these words were spoken.
Have those to whom was confided the direction
of the Government kept their pledges?
The record is made up.
The people are not unfamiliar with what has been accomplished.
The gold standard has been reaffirmed and strengthened.
The endless chain has been broken, and the
drain upon our gold reserve no longer frets us.
The credit of the country has been advanced
to the highest place among all nations.
We are refunding our bonded debt-bearing 3 and 4 and 5 per cent
interest at 2 per cent, a lower rate than that of any other country,
and already more than $300,000,000 have been funded,
with a gain to the Government of many millions of dollars.
Instead of 16 to 1, for which our opponents contended
four years ago, legislation has been enacted which,
while utilizing all forms of our money, secures one fixed value
for every dollar, and that the best known to the civilized world.
A tariff which protects American labor and industry and
provides ample revenues has been written in public law.
We have lower interest and higher wages;
more money and fewer mortgages.
The world's markets have been opened to American products,
which go now where they have never gone before.
We have passed from a bond-issuing to a bond-paying Nation;
from a Nation of borrowers to a Nation of lenders;
from a deficiency in revenue to a surplus; from fear to
confidence; from enforced idleness to profitable employment.
The public faith has been upheld;
public order has been maintained.
We have prosperity at home and prestige abroad.
Unfortunately the threat of 1896 has just been renewed
by the allied parties without abatement or modification.
The Gold bill has been denounced and its repeal demanded.
The menace of 16 to 1, therefore, still hangs over us
with all its dire consequences to credit
and confidence, to business and industry.
The enemies of sound currency are rallying their scattered forces.
The people must once more unite and overcome the advocates
of repudiation, and must not relax their energy until the battle
for public honor and honest money shall again triumph.
A Congress which will sustain and, if need be, strengthen
the present law, can prevent a financial catastrophe which
every lover of the Republic is interested to avert.
Not satisfied with assaulting the currency and credit of the
Government, our political adversaries condemn the tariff
enacted at the extra session of Congress in 1897,
known as the Dingley act, passed in obedience to the will
of the people expressed at the election in the preceding
November, a law which at once stimulated our industries,
opened the factories and mines, and gave to the laborer
and to the farmers fair returns for their toil and investment.
Shall we go back to a tariff which brings deficiency in our
revenues and destruction to our industrial enterprises?
Faithful to its pledges in these internal affairs, how has
the Government discharged its international duties?
Our platform of 1896 declared "the Hawaiian Islands should
be controlled by the United States, and no foreign power
should be permitted to interfere with them."
This purpose has been fully accomplished by annexation,
and delegates from those beautiful islands have
participated in the declaration for which you speak today.
In the great conference of nations at The Hague, we reaffirmed
before the world the Monroe doctrine and our adherence to it
and our determination not to participate in the complications of Europe.
We have happily ended the European alliance in Samoa, securing
to ourselves one of the most valuable harbors in the Pacific Ocean,
while the open door in China gives to us fair and
equal competition in the vast trade of the Orient.
Some things have happened which were not promised,
nor even foreseen, and our purposes in
relation to the must not be left in doubt.
A just war has been waged for humanity, and with it
have come new problems and responsibilities.
Spain has been ejected from the Western Hemisphere
and our flag floats over her former territory.
Cuba has been liberated and our guarantees
to her people will be sacredly executed.
A beneficent government has been provided for Porto Rico.
The Philippines are ours and American authority
must be supreme throughout the archipelago.
There will be amnesty broad and liberal but no
abatement of our rights, no abandonment of our duty.
There must be no scuttle policy.
We will fulfill in the Philippines the obligations imposed by
the triumphs of our arms and by the treaty of peace;
by international law, by the Nation's sense of honor,
and, more than all, by the rights, interests,
and conditions of the Philippine people themselves.
No outside interference blocks the way
to peace and a stable government.
The obstructionists are here, not elsewhere.
They may postpone, and they cannot defeat the realization
of the high purpose of this Nation to restore order to the
islands and to establish a just and generous Government,
in which the inhabitants shall have the largest
participation for which they are capable.
The organized forces which have been misled into rebellion
have been dispersed by our faithful soldiers and sailors and
the people of the islands, delivered from anarchy, pillage and
oppression, recognize American sovereignty as the symbol
and pledge of peace, justice, law, religious freedom, education,
the security of life and property and the welfare
and prosperity of their several communities.
We reassert the early principle of the Republican Party,
sustained by unbroken judicial precedents, that the
Representatives of the people in Congress assembled have
full legislative power over territory belonging to the
United States, subject to the fundamental safeguards of liberty,
justice, and personal rights, and are vested with ample authority
to act "for the highest interests of our Nation
and the people intrusted to its care."
This doctrine, first proclaimed in the cause of freedom,
will never be used as a weapon for oppression.
I am glad to be assured by you that what we have done
in the Far East has the approval of the country.
The sudden and terrible crisis in China calls for the gravest
consideration, and you will not expect from me now any
further expression than to say that my best efforts shall be
given to the Immediate purpose of protecting the lives of
our citizens who are in peril, with the ultimate object of the
peace and welfare of China, the safeguarding of all our
treaty rights, and the maintenance of those principles of
impartial intercourse to which the civilized world is pledged.
I cannot conclude without congratulating my countrymen
upon the strong National sentiment which finds expression
in every part of our common country and the increased respect
with which the American name is greeted throughout the world.
We have been moving in untried paths, and
our steps have been guided by honor and duty.
There will be no turning aside, no wavering, no retreat.
No blow has been struck except for
liberty and humanity, and none will be.
We will perform without fear every
National and international obligation.
The Republican Party was dedicated to freedom
forty-four years ago.
It has been the party of liberty and emancipation
from that hour; not of profession, but of performance.
It broke the shackles of 4,000,000 slaves and made them free,
and to the party of Lincoln has come another supreme opportunity,
which it has bravely met in the liberation of 10,000,000
of the human family from the yoke of imperialism.
In its solution of great problems, in its performance of
high duties, it has had the support of members of all parties
in the past and confidently invokes their cooperation in the future.
Permit me to express, Mr. Chairman, my most sincere
appreciation of the complimentary terms in which you
convey the official notice of my nomination and my thanks
to the members of the committee and to the great constituency
which they represent, for this additional
evidence of their favor and support.
McKinley in July interrupted his vacation at Canton, Ohio
and returned to Washington, and he approved
sending 10,000 more troops to China.
The 18,000 Alliance troops that in August traveled 80 mile
to Beijing included 2,200 Americans.
In that capital they faced 100,000 Boxers and Qing troops.
The allies reached Beijing on August 15 and used artillery.
McKinley opposed dividing China or western nations taking
territory or trying to overthrow the Qing government.
On August 28 McKinley and his cabinet met
all day to reconcile Russia’s position, and their
final statement endorsed the open-door policy.
On October 19 Chinese envoys proposed peace,
recognized China’s responsibility for its violations,
accepted an indemnity, and promised
that foreigners would be safe.65
Henry Clay Payne of Wisconsin was vice chairman
of the National Republican Party, and he proposed changing the rules
for selecting delegates to the convention based on the number of elected
politicians because he felt the South was getting
too many delegates while winning few elections.
McKinley and Mark Hanna believed this would be bad for black Republicans,
and they persuaded Payne to withdraw his plan.
When Gov. Theodore Roosevelt wearing a Rough-Rider hat arrived
in Philadelphia on June 16 as New York’s delegate-at-large, he was cheered.
McKinley announced that he would not choose the candidate for Vice President,
and he would accept whomever the convention nominated.
On June 19 Ohio’s Senator and the Republican Party chairman Mark Hanna
opened the convention with a speech,
and Colorado’s Senator Oliver Wolcott also spoke.
The next day Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts addressed the crowd.
On June 21 Ohio’s other Senator Foraker nominated McKinley,
and Roosevelt made the speech seconding the nomination.
For the first time since Grant in 1872 the nomination for McKinley was unanimous.
The Republicans also nominated by acclamation Roosevelt for Vice President.
The Republican platform supported the military occupation of the Philippines,
and they condemned trusts and monopolies
that “restrict trade, limit production and control prices.”
In his letter accepting the nomination McKinley denounced the restraint
of trade and competition that trusts use to cause higher prices.
He wrote, “They are dangerous conspiracies against the public good,
and should be made the subject of prohibitory or penal legislation.”66
He criticized Bryan for advocating the repeal of the Gold Standard Act.
McKinley asked the Democrats what they would have done differently
when Spain was controlling the islands of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines
and suppressing those fighting for independence.
He argued that Bryan’s promise to give them independence
was prolonging the war in the Philippines.
The Republicans sent out ten million copies of this campaign statement,
and newspapers printed it around the country.
Democrats met at Kansas City on July 4 and again nominated
William Jennings Bryan who still advocated silver coinage at a 16 to 1 ratio.
Bryan also said,
We condemn and denounce the Philippine policy
of the present administration.
It has involved the Republic in unnecessary war,
sacrificed the lives of many of our noblest sons,
and placed the United States,
previously known and applauded throughout the world
as the champion of freedom,
in the false and un-American position of crushing
with military force the efforts of our former allies
to achieve liberty and self-government.67
Bryan’s campaign criticized the Republican policies of McKinley that supported
trusts, banks, the gold standard, protectionist tariffs,
and especially the imperialistic foreign policy.
He accused that war of attacking “the very foundation of free government.”
After Bryan gave his speech at Indianapolis on August 8 criticizing the war
in the Philippines, the Anti-Imperialist League endorsed his campaign.
President McKinley in September announced that he would not campaign
at all himself even at home because of his ailing wife,
and he decided he would continue to do his work as President.
Mark Hanna ran his campaign and focused on prosperity
with the slogan “A Full Dinner Pail.”
The economy was growing at an annual rate of 7.5%.
When coal miners went on strike in late September, Hanna used his influence
with J. P. Morgan to get management to settle the strike with justice for the miners.
The campaign sent out 110 million brochures, pamphlets, and letters
as well as materials for newspapers to insert.
They printed McKinley’s speeches and writings in ten languages.
The Republicans’ main speaker was Roosevelt who gave 673 speeches
in eight weeks to about three million people in 567 towns and 24 states
as he traveled about 22,200 miles.
Hanna himself even campaigned in Bryan’s home state of Nebraska and in South Dakota.
McKinley won those states and the election with 292 electoral votes to Bryan’s 155.
Bryan won in the 13 former slave states and in Colorado, Montana, Idaho, and Nevada.
McKinley won the other 28 states and the popular vote by 859,694 votes
in the largest victory since Grant’s in 1872.
Republicans also gained 13 House seats and 3 in the Senate.
McKinley declared that he had moved from being “the President of a party”
to “President of the whole people.”
McKinley’s wife Ida did not want him to run for a second term.
Since the spring of 1899 she was suffering from a more serious depression.
She was worried he might be assassinated.
The anarchist Luigi Lucheni had fatally stabbed Empress Elisabeth of Austria
on 10 September 1898.
The Italian-American Gaetano Bresci of Paterson, New Jersey
shot to death Italy’s King Umberto on 29 July 1900.
On October 3 a newspaper warned that Italians were suspected of leaving Italy
to kill President McKinley at Canton, and the mayor increased the police force.
At a cabinet meeting on November 9 McKinley decided to maintain the
guards of the American legation in China, though some troops were returned
to the Philippines to help General MacArthur fight the insurgents.
McKinley spoke to the Union League in Philadelphia, and the New York Times
reported on November 25 what the President considered his mandate:
Unquestioned indorsement of the gold standard,
industrial independence, broader markets,
commercial expansion, reciprocal trade,
the open door in China, the inviolability of public faith,
the independence and authority of the judiciary,
and peace and beneficent government
under American sovereignty in the Philippines.”66
In his 41-page fourth annual message to Congress on December 3
McKinley reviewed in great detail the history of the
western nations’ confrontation with China, saying,
The matter of indemnity for our wronged citizens
is a question of grave concern.
Measured in money alone, a sufficient reparation
may prove to be beyond the ability of China to meet.
All the powers concur in emphatic disclaimers
of any purpose of aggrandizement
through the dismemberment of the Empire.
I am disposed to think that due compensation may be made
in part by increased guarantees of security for foreign rights
and immunities, and, most important of all, by the opening
of China to the equal commerce of all the world.
These views have been and will be earnestly
advocated by our representatives.67
Then he discussed relations with many nations.
In the second half he reported on the finances of the United States that had
a surplus of $79,527,060 in the preceding fiscal year ending in June 1900.
He noted that the six preceding years had deficits.
Exports set a new record with $1,394,483,082.
Imports were $849,941,184.
He discussed the situation in the Philippines under the Military Governor,
and he reviewed the efforts of the Taft Commission.
He mentioned briefly Puerto Rico and Cuba.
He reported, “The present strength of the Army is 100,000 men—
65,000 regulars and 35,000 volunteers,”68
and he warned that according to a recent law the U. S. Army was to be
reduced to “2,447 officers and 29,025 enlisted men” by the end of next June.
In conclusion with prosperity he warned against extravagance.
His last words were:
Our growing power brings with it temptations and perils
requiring constant vigilance to avoid.
It must not be used to invite conflicts, nor for oppression,
but for the more effective maintenance of those principles
of equality and justice upon which
our institutions and happiness depend.
Let us keep always in mind that the foundation
of our Government is liberty; its superstructure peace.69
Also on December 3 about 2,200 Filipino rebels gave up their arms
and swore allegiance to the United States.
Over 35,000 surrendered in Panay and took the oath.
Yet guerrilla actions continued, and those collaborating
with the Americans could be targeted for assassination.
On December 6 the New York Times reported that Rep. Samuel McCall
of Massachusetts argued during the debate on the army bill
against a large standing army.
He urged the President to apply his Cuba independence policy
to the Philippines suggesting, “Let us tell them that
we will aid them for one year
or for five if need be in setting up a Government
of their own symbolized by their own flag.”70
In February 1901 President McKinley persuaded Wisconsin’s Senator Spooner
to propose an amendment increasing the authority of the executive in the Philippines
that provoked opposition by anti-imperialists.
Later that month Republicans passed the Army Bill in the House,
and some Republicans in the Senate were opposed.
McKinley warned them that he would call them back for a special session,
and this threat persuaded the senators to
pass a temporary authorization for 100,000 troops.
The bill also included the Spooner amendment giving the President
“military, civil, and judicial powers necessary to govern the Philippine Islands.”
McKinley persuaded Senator Orville Platt to introduce an amendment
that inserted Root’s controversial points and restricted Cuba’s right to make
treaties and commercial agreements with nations other than the United States.
A bill with the Spooner amendment on Cuba passed on March 2.
Five points that Secretary Root wanted in that Constitution gave the United States such
overwhelming prerogatives that 15,000 Cubans gathered to protest them at Havana.
On February 16 the Cuban delegates decided not to accept the American naval base.
On February 27 they agreed to the rest of the U. S. amendments,
and they asked for reciprocal trade relations.
On March 4 about 40,000 people gathered for McKinley’s second inauguration.
When he arrived to make his speech, it began to rain.
Despite the rain that continued until shortly after his speech
the crowd cheered him often.
He reviewed the problems they had faced four years earlier,
and then he described how much things had improved especially the economy.
In the current prosperity he intended to move more into reciprocal trade agreements
rather than the high tariffs he had previously advocated.
He noted they needed to settle some issues with Cuba.
In spite of ongoing difficulties in the Philippines he refused to admit
the United States was at war against Filipinos, and he said,
“A portion of them are making war against the United States.”71
This is President McKinley's Second Inaugural Address given on 4 March 1901::
My Fellow-Citizens:
When we assembled here on the 4th of March, 1897,
there was great anxiety with regard to our currency and credit.
None exists now.
Then our Treasury receipts were inadequate to meet
the current obligations of the Government.
Now they are sufficient for all public needs,
and we have a surplus instead of a deficit.
Then I felt constrained to convene the Congress in extraordinary
session to devise revenues to pay
the ordinary expenses of the Government.
Now I have the satisfaction to announce that the Congress
just closed has reduced taxation in the sum of $41,000,000.
Then there was deep solicitude because of the long depression
in our manufacturing, mining, agricultural, and mercantile industries
and the consequent distress of our laboring population.
Now every avenue of production is crowded with activity,
labor is well employed, and American products
find good markets at home and abroad.
Our diversified productions, however, are increasing in such
unprecedented volume as to admonish us of the necessity of still
further enlarging our foreign markets by broader commercial relations.
For this purpose reciprocal trade arrangements with other nations
should in liberal spirit be carefully cultivated and promoted.
The national verdict of 1896 has for the most part been executed.
Whatever remains unfulfilled is a continuing obligation resting
with undiminished force upon the Executive and the Congress.
But fortunate as our conditionis, its permanence can only be assured
by sound business methods and strict economy
in national administration and legislation.
We should not permit our great prosperity to lead us
to reckless ventures in business or profligacy in public expenditures.
While the Congress determines the objects and the sum of appropriations,
the officials of the executive departments are responsible for
honest and faithful disbursement, and it should be
their constant care to avoid waste and extravagance.
Honesty, capacity, and industry are nowhere
more indispensable than in public employment.
These should be fundamental requisites to original appointment
and the surest guarantees against removal.
Four years ago we stood on the brink of war without
the people knowing it and without any preparation
or effort at preparation for the impending peril.
I did all that in honor could be done to avert the war, but without avail.
It became inevitable; and the Congress at its first regular session,
without party division, provided money in anticipation
of the crisis and in preparation to meet it.
It came.
The result was signally favorable to American arms
and in the highest degree honorable to the Government.
It imposed upon us obligations from which we cannot escape
and from which it would be dishonorable to seek escape.
We are now at peace with the world, and it is my fervent prayer
that if differences arise between us and otherpowers
they may be settled by peaceful arbitration
and that hereafter we may be spared the horrors of war.
Intrusted by the people for a second time with the office of President,
I enter upon its administration appreciating the great responsibilities
which attach to this renewed honor and commission,
promising unreserved devotion on my part to their faithful discharge
and reverently invoking for my guidance
the direction and favor of Almighty God.
I should shrink from the duties this day assumed if I did not feel
that in their performance I should have the co-operation
of the wise and patriotic men of all parties.
It encourages me for the great task which I now undertake
to believe that those who voluntarily committed to me
the trust imposed upon the Chief Executive of the Republic
will give to me generous support in my duties to
"preserve, protect, and defend, the Constitution of the United States"
and to "care that the laws be faithfully executed."
The national purpose is indicated through a national election.
It is the constitutional method of ascertaining the public will.
When once it is registered it is a law to us all,
and faithful observance should follow its decrees.
Strong hearts and helpful hands are needed, and, fortunately,
we have them in every part of our beloved country.
We are reunited.
Sectionalism has disappeared. Division on public questions
can no longer be traced by the war maps of 1861.
These old differences less and less disturb the judgment.
Existing problems demand the thought and quicken the conscience
of the country, and the responsibility for their presence,
as well as for the irrighteous settlement, rests upon us all--
no more upon me than upon you.
There are some national questions in the solution of which
patriotism should exclude partisanship.
Magnifying their difficulties will not take them off our hands
nor facilitate their adjustment.
Distrust of the capacity, integrity, and high purposes
of the American people will not be an inspiring theme
for future political contests.
Dark pictures and gloomy forebodings are worse than useless.
These only becloud, they do not help
to point the way of safety and honor.
"Hope maketh not ashamed."
The prophets of evil were not the builders of the Republic,
nor in its crises since have they saved or served it.
The faith of the fathers was a mighty force in its creation,
and the faith of their descendants has wrought its progress
and furnished its defenders.
They are obstructionists who despair, and who would destroy confidenc
in the ability of our people to solve wisely and for civilization
the mighty problems resting upon them.
The American people, intrenched in freedom at home,
take their love for it with them wherever they go,
and they reject as mistaken and unworthy the doctrine
that we lose our own liberties by securing
the enduring foundations of liberty to others.
Our institutions will not deteriorate by extension,
and our sense of justice will not abate under tropic suns in distant seas.
As heretofore, so hereafter will the nation demonstrate its fitness
to administer any new estate which events devolve upon it,
and in the fear of God will "take occasion by the hand
and make the bounds of freedom wider yet."
If there are those among us who would make our way more difficult,
we must not be disheartened, and the more earnestly dedicate
ourselves to the task upon which we have rightly entered.
The path of progress is seldom smooth.
New things are often found hard to do.
Our fathers found them so.
We find them so.
They are inconvenient.
They cost us something.
But are we not made better for the effort and sacrifice,
and are not those we serve lifted up and blessed?
We will be consoled, to, with the fact that opposition
has confronted every onward movement of the Republic
from its opening hour until now, but without success.
The Republic has marched on and on,
and its step has exalted freedom and humanity.
We are undergoing the same ordeal as did our
predecessors nearly a century ago.
We are following the course they blazed.
They triumphed.
Will their successors falter and plead organic impotency in the nation?
Surely after 125 years of achievement for mankind
we will not now surrender our equality with other powers
on matters fundamental and essential to nationality.
With no such purpose was the nation created.
In no such spirit has it developed its full and independent sovereignty.
We adhere to the principle of equality among ourselves,
and by no act of ours will we assign to ourselves
a subordinate rank in the family of nations.
My fellow-citizens, the public events of the past four years
have gone into history.
They are too near to justify recital.
Some of them were unforeseen; many of them momentous
and far-reaching in their consequences to ourselves
and our relations with the rest of the world.
The part which the United States bore so honorably in the
thrilling scenes in China, while new to American life,
has been in harmony with its true spirit and best traditions,
and in dealing with the results its policy will be
that of moderation and fairness.
We face at this moment a most important question
that of the future relations of the United States and Cuba.
With our near neighbors we mustremain close friends.
The declaration of the purposes of this Government
in the resolution of April 20, 1898, must be made good.
Ever since theevacuation of the island by the army of Spain,
the Executive, with all practicable speed, has been assisting
its people in the successive steps necessary to the
establishment of a free and independent government
prepared to assume and perform the obligations of
international law which now rest upon the United States
under the treaty of Paris.
The convention elected by the people to frame a constitution
is approaching the completion of its labors.
The transfer of American control to the new government
is of such great importance, involving an obligation
resulting from our intervention and the treaty of peace,
that I am glad to be advised by the recent act of Congress
of the policy which the legislative branch of the Government
deems essential to the best interests of Cuba and the United States.
The principles which led to our intervention require
that the fundamental law upon which the new government
rests should be adapted to secure a government capable
of performing the duties and discharging the functions
of a separate nation, of observing its international obligations
of protecting life and property, insuring order, safety, and liberty,
and conforming to the established and historical policy
of the United States in its relation to Cuba.
The peace which we are pledged to leave to the Cuban people
must carry with it the guaranties of permanence.
We became sponsors for the pacification of the island,
and we remain accountable to the Cubans,
no less than to our own country and people,
for the reconstruction of Cuba as a free commonwealth
on abiding foundations of right, justice, liberty, and assured order.
Our enfranchisement of the people will not be completed
until free Cuba shall"be a reality, not a name;
a perfect entity, not a hasty experiment
bearing within itself the elements of failure."
While the treaty of peace with Spain
was ratified on the 6th of February, 1899,
and ratifications were exchanged nearly two years ago,
the Congress has indicated no form
of government for the Philippine Islands.
It has, however, provided an army to enable
the Executive to suppress insurrection, restore peace,
give security to the inhabitants, and establish the
authority of the United States throughout the archipelago.
It has authorized the organization of native troops
as auxiliary to the regular force.
It has been advised from time to time of the acts of the military
and naval officers in the islands, of my action in appointing
civil commissions, of the instructionswith which they were charged,
of their duties and powers, of their recommendations,
and of their several acts under executive commission,
together with the very complete general information
they have submitted.
These reports fully set forth the conditions, past and present,
in the islands, and the instructions clearly show the principles
which will guide the Executive until the Congresss hall,
as it is required to do by the treaty, determine
"the civil rights and political status of the native inhabitants."
The Congress having added the sanction of its authority
to the powers already possessed and exercised by the Executive
under the Constitution, thereby leaving with the Executive
the responsibility for the government of the Philippines,
I shall continue the efforts already begun until order
shall be restored throughout the islands, and as fast as
conditions permit will establish local governments, in the formation
of which the full co-operation of the people has been already invited,
and when established will encourage the people to administer them.
The settled purpose, long ago proclaimed,
to afford the inhabitantsof the islands self- government as fast as
they were ready for it will be pursued with earnestness and fidelity.
Already something has been accomplishedin this direction.
The Government's representatives, civil and military,
are doing faithful and noble work in their mission of emancipation
and merit the approval and support of their countrymen.
The most liberal termsof amnesty have already been
communicated to the insurgents, and the way is still open
for those who have raised their arms against the Government
for honorable submission to its authority.
Our countrymen should not be deceived.
We are not waging war against the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands.
A portion of them are making war against the United States.
By far the greater part of the inhabitants
recognize American sovereignty and welcome it
as a guaranty of order and of security for life, property,
liberty, freedom of conscience, and the pursuit of happiness.
To them full protection will be given.
They shall not be abandoned.
We will not leave the destiny of the loyal millions
the islands to the disloyal thousands
who are in rebellion against the United States.
Order under civil institutions will come as soon as those
who now break the peace shall keep it.
Forcewill not be needed or used when those who make war
against us shall make it no more.
May it end without further bloodshed,
and there be ushered in the reign of peace
to be made permanent by a government of liberty under law!72
On April 5 McKinley made the lawyer and banker Philander Knox
the new Attorney General, and the President agreed to give him
a free hand in enforcing the Sherman Antitrust Act.
General Leonard Wood arranged for Cuban delegates
to meet with McKinley and Root in the White House on April 26.
The President would not agree to changing any of the Platt Amendment,
and he said he would negotiate reciprocal trade after they formed a government.
Root later learned at Havana that some of the language had been modified,
and he insisted that it be precisely the same as the Platt Amendment,
or the occupation would not end.
The Cuban delegates reluctantly complied with that on June 12.
On April 29 McKinley began a tour of the United States for six weeks
that went to the west coast and culminated at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo.
After his wife Ida began recovering from nearly dying,
they crossed the country from San Francisco to Washington in five days.
McKinley in May criticized the indemnity demands and executions
that the western powers were demanding of China.
They modified death sentences, and they removed their troops
from Beijing except for the legation guards.
On May 28 Cuba’s constitutional convention
voted 15-14 to accept the Platt Amendment.
The McKinleys stayed at Canton as Ida recovered.
On September 5 he spoke to 50,000 people at the Buffalo Exposition
advocating reciprocity treaties in order to increase American exports.
The next day Leon Czolgosz, who had been influenced by anarchists
and a recent lecture by Emma Goldman, managed to get very close
to McKinley in a reception line and shot him twice in the stomach.
The Detective John Geary confirmed that the President was shot
and helped him to a chair.
McKinley asked his secretary Cortelyou to be very careful
when telling his wife Ida what happened.
Surgery helped repair two holes in his stomach, and one bullet
had not been removed and damaged the pancreas,
causing McKinley’s death on September 14.
Czolgosz confessed and explained his motive,
“I didn’t believe any man should have so much service
and another man should have nothing.”73
He was convicted of first degree murder,
and was executed by electrocution on October 29.
When Vice President Roosevelt was informed he said,
In this hour of deep and terrible bereavement I wish to state
that I shall continue absolutely unbroken the policy
of President McKinley for the peace, prosperity,
and the honor of the country.74
Yet on his first day in the White House Roosevelt told reporters
that he would act as if he had been elected President.
1. Cong. Rec. 51stt Cong. 1st sess. 6933-6934; Speeches and Addresses
by William McKinley, p. 457-458 in Ragtime in the White House:
War, Race, and the Presidency in the Time of William McKinley by Eliot Vestner, p. 4.
2. Cincinnati Enquirer, March 10, 1895, 1 in Ragtime in the White House
by Eliot Vestner, p. 78.
3. Ragtime in the White House by Eliot Vestner, p. 90.
4. President McKinley: Architect of the American Century by Robert W. Merry, p. 119.
5. Speeches of William Jennings Bryan, Volume 1, p. 248.
6. Ibid., p. 249.
7. Ragtime in the White House by Eliot Vestner, p. 183.8. Messages and Papers of the Presidents 1789-1908, Volume 10, p. 11-19.
9. Ragtime in the White House by Eliot Vestner, p. 187.
10. The Spanish-Cuban-American War and the Birth of American Imperialism Vol. 2:
1898–1902 by Philip S. Foner, p. 185.
11. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power
by Howard K. Beale, p. 52.
12. Letters and Speeches by Theodore Roosevelt, p. 105-106.
13. President McKinley by Robert W. Merry, p. 208.
14. Ibid., p. 217.
15. Ibid., p. 227.
16. Messages and Papers of the Presidents 1789-1908, Volume 10, p. 32.
17. Ibid., p. 33.
18. Spanish-American War, The: A Documentary History with Commentaries
ed. Brad K. Berner, p. 41.
19. Ragtime in the White House by Eliot Vestner, p. 233.
20. President McKinley by Robert W. Merry, p. 266-267.
21. Messages and Papers of the Presidents 1789-1908, Volume 10, p. 64-65.
22. Spanish-American War, The: A Documentary History with Commentaries
ed. Brad K. Berner, p. 61.
23. In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines by Stanley Karnow, p. 102.
24. Spanish-American War, The: A Documentary History with Commentaries
ed. Brad K. Berner, p. 97.
25. President McKinley by Robert W. Merry, p. 341.
26. Liberty and American Anti-Imperialism 1898-1909
by Michael Patrick Cullinane, p. 18-21.
27. Spanish-American War, The: A Documentary History with Commentaries
ed. Brad K. Berner, p. 188.
28. Ibid., p. 187-188.
29. Ibid., p. 191.
30. Ibid. p. 91.
31. Ibid., p. 195.
32. President McKinley by Robert W. Merry, p. 314.
33. Spanish-American War, The: A Documentary History with Commentaries
ed. Brad K. Berner, p. 218.
34. Ibid., p. 229.
35. The Annals of America Volume 12 1895-1904, p. 231-233.
36. Spanish-American War, The: A Documentary History with Commentaries
ed. Brad K. Berner, p. 101.
37. Empire by Default: The Spanish-American War and the Dawn of the
American Century by Ivan Musicant, p. 586.
38. Ragtime in the White House by Eliot Vestner, p. 331.
39. Spanish-American War, The: A Documentary History with Commentaries
ed. Brad K. Berner, p. 249.
40. President McKinley by Robert W. Merry, p. 341.
41. Ragtime in the White House by Eliot Vestner, p. 307.
42. Messages and Papers of the Presidents 1789-1908, Volume 10, p. 82.
43. History of the Filipino People by Teodoro A. Agoncillo and Milagros C. Guerrero, p. 263.
44. Spanish-American War, The: A Documentary History with Commentaries
ed. Brad K. Berner, p. 220.
45. Ibid., p. 221.
46. Ibid., p. 246.
47. Ibid., p. 222-223.
48. Ibid., p. 223.
49. Ibid., p. 246-247.
50. Ibid., p. 224-225.
51. Ibid., p. 226.
52. Liberty and American Anti-Imperialism 1898-1909
by Michael Patrick Cullinane, p. 46.
53. Spanish-American War, The: A Documentary History with Commentarie
ed. Brad K. Berner, p. 93.
54. Ragtime in the White House by Eliot Vestner, p. 354.
55. Ibid., p. 355.
56. President McKinley by Robert W. Merry, p. 433.
57. Ragtime in the White House by Eliot Vestner, p. 368.
58. Speeches of William Jennings Bryan, Volume 2, p. 38.
59. President McKinley by Robert W. Merry, p. 469-470.
60. Ibid., p. 391.
61. Messages and Papers of the Presidents 1789-1908, Volume 10, p. 136.
62. Ibid., p. 169.
63.
Ibid., p. 181.
64. Forgotten Legacy: William McKinley, George Henry White,
and the Struggle for Black Equality by Benjamin Justesen, p. 186.
65. July 12, 1900: Speech Accepting the Republican Nomination (Online)
66. McKinley and His America by H. Wayne Morgan, p. 366.
67. Messages and Papers of the Presidents 1789-1908, Volume 10, p. 200.
68. Ibid., p. 232.
69. Ibid., p. 224.
70. President McKinley by Robert W. Merry, p. 457.
71.Messages and Papers of the Presidents 1789-1908, Volume 10, p. 224
72. Messages and Papers of the Presidents 1789-1908, Volume 10, p. 244.
73. Ragtime in the White House by Eliot Vestner, p. 451-452.
76. Messages and Papers of the Presidents 1789-1908, Volume 10, p. 483.
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