Congressional quarterly, he calls the presidency of wikileaks William Mckinley. This is just over one hour. applause good evening ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to kansas city public library. Robert merry, this is his second representation. Y applause he is a graduate of the university of washington. He has a masters degree from Columbia University school of journalism. He has been a reporter for the observer, the wall street journal, managing editor, executive editor and editor in chief of congressional quarterly, and more recently, editor of the National Interest in the american conservative. The american conservative he says its collaborative, but it sounds a lot like robert merry. This is a description of their philosophy. We believe in constitutional government, fiscal prudence, sound policy, clearly needed borders, protection of civil liberties, and mixed with diplomatic we had here closely to our institutional maximum ideas of ideology principles one could wish that there was more of that kind of true conservatism wandering around rather than someone who professed to be conservative. He is also the author of books of his ultimate journalistic insider stewart and joseph wilson. Hes written the sense of empire, and analysis and something laterally, a country a vast designs, rehabilitation of james polk. President james poke. Now president mckinley, architect of the american century. Both polk and mckinley, he makes the case the export unsafe expansion of the american in a pure geographical sense and extending our batteries any other than Thomas Jefferson and louisiana purchase. Mckinley, and the non colonial imperialism, that did bring Us Geographical expansion with the annexation of hawaii with the acquisition of puerto rico, but more importantly, the expansion of american concern and engagement as a role power manifested in the spanish american war, the battles in cuba and the battles in the philippines. And the control over cuba and philippines for a standing period of times. Youve been door in china and vast expansion of the american economy. Polk has been called the most successful president. What he proposed to do as president , incorporate california, texas, reduce the tariff and reinstate independent treasury. You could see me after class to explain that one. We are all accomplished. He is the only president who saw his entire Program Written in the law. Hes also told one of our most because of the shenanigans associated with the mexican war, which make part of that program possible. Robert merry sides with a diagnosis of him as a successful politician. With mckinley, he gives us a more subtle case that there was a lesser version that perhaps just as important a program for the president give the United States a new place in the international stage. You only stated program of the mckinley campaign for the president was on the tariff, with which he was more than anyone else identified, the high tariff. Historians have had a hard time discerning a Foreign Policy in his plans but he makes a strong case that he was the guide who gave us empire. It was not lodge or roosevelt or john hay, but the deliberate and very subtle mastery of William Mckinley. This book is a continuation of an ongoing effort of robert merry to reverse the trend of contemporary academics to i quote him, devour our heritage through acronyms, moralizing for the safe distance of as such, he has created a sympathetic character study and one of the architects of the american century. Ladies and gentlemen, robert merry. applause thank you. Thank you very much. It is a pleasure to be here. So great pleasure to see all of you here. This is actually my third time at this library. Ive spoken at a number of libraries. Not a lot of five star libraries. He didnt mean to. I entitled my introduction to this volume on mckinley, the mystery of William Mckinley. I was pleased to see the wall street journal sort of picked up on that and writing a headline over the review of my book, which by the way was very favorable. That is my effort to emulate donald trump. laughter i have to say that i did not set out to solve the mystery of William Mckinley i did not understand mckinley enough when i started this project to understand theres something strange. Theres something mysterious about him. It can be explained in perhaps two sentences, which is given all the consequential things that happened on his president ial watch, why does he not rise higher in americas historical consciousness of today . Put another way, given he was such a non flamboyant and undramatic personage, how did all those consequential things happen on his presidency . So as i guided through the project, i have to say the guy started driving me crazy because i had a hard time getting a handle on him. He was not a forceful man and get all of these things happened under his presidency and i was having a hard time sort of bringing this to life. The historical consensus on him was that, yeah big things happened under his watch, but he had nothing to do with it. He was just president. That didnt really strike me as being totally credible. That is what i call if you relief in the wind theory of William Mckinley. An example is a book by alan lichtman, which i quote a lot. Its a very good book. Its not just about mckinley, it is about how the presidency works. But they have a chapter on mckinley and they write that he enjoyed quote, one of the more successful incumbencys in American History. But then they add that he found himself quote, benefiting in part from circumstances beyond his control. Theres the rub. Beyond his control. He was seen as less than the sum of his deeds. What struck me also was in the academic polls, which ive written about and talked about in this hall some years ago, that in those polls he comes in, not exactly lower average, maybe middle average. He comes in 15th or 16th 14th occasionally. Often he is below such an distinguished or failed president s such as chester garfield. Nevertheless, he was a caretaker president. Martin van buren was a failed president and presided over a terrible recession and get depression he could not control. Rutherford hayes who became president under the basis of one of the great stolen election scandals of our history. Grover cleveland who, as we all know, was the only president who served two non consecutive terms. He was rejected by either his party and voters after each, this making him the only twotime one term president in our history. And John Quincy Adams who was swept away in a populist wave at the behest of andrew jackson. So the mystery deepens when you think about what happened on his watch. Im going to urge you to not think about what im about to take off as just bullet points on a piece of paper. Think about the Political Drama likely to attend many of these things. Well, he led us into a world of spain in 1898. He ended up being a huge success. It was a three month war. We destroy the spanish empire essentially in the process. We destroyed two spanish fleets, theyre atlantic and pacific fleets. We became an empire by acquiring from spain, puerto rico, guam and the philippines. We liberated cuba in the caribbean. We could have kept it also, but we had already made a commitment that we wouldnt. He kicked spain out of the caribbean and turned the caribbean into an american lake. For good measure, as far as we noted, he acquired a white through negotiation and annexation. He set in motion the events that led eventually to the panama canal. Pr gets an awful lot of credit for that, and he deserves it, but it was really mckinley who reversed the policy of his predecessor, cleveland, was an anti expansionist. He said no, we are going to move on this can now and set in motion the studies and the actions and the planning that led to the canal. He brought about the open door to china which basically saved china for being carved up by the industrial powers, european and japanese powers. He created the concept of trade reciprocity, which when i was covering trade policy in the 19 eighties, when it was a hot issue in the wall street journal, reciprocity was really was then called fair trade. Make it even so that we can have these exchange of goods back and forth across borders. He crafted the concept of non colonial imperialism, which i believe ultimately was picked up by Franklin Roosevelt when he was transforming the world through world war ii and putting america at the center of it. It was on his watch that we established the special relationship with britain. Just a few years earlier, under the cleveland administration, we almost went to war with britain over a silly border dispute in south america. But after that, we never ever had anything like that in terms of tensions with Great Britain because of this special relationship. And he created the gold standard, we tend to look down on gold standards these days, but in those days it was a big deal. He ran when the currency issue was probably the hottest in our history. He essentially soft that in his first term. This is a big collection of accomplishments or developments that occurred on his watch. The question is, to what extent does he deserve the credit . I myself came to conclude that the idea, belief in the wind theory, was a myth. I set out to expose that mitt in this book. I will let you decide whether i succeed in that. Im happy to do that because you cant decide unless you buy the book. laughs so who was this man . Born in 1843, he was the seventh of the nine children. Eight of whom lived to adulthood. He grew up in ohio, a small town in ohio. He was imbued with what you might call the ohio culture of the time which was a reflection of what people of those times considered christian values of thrift, optimism, modesty, hard toil. His father ran and owned blast furnaces around ohio. He worked very hard. His mother had a strong sense of civic and religious duty. She was a very civic minded and worked very hard for her church and community. They were in poland for most of the growing up years of william. His mother was also imbued with those christian values i just talked about. One of my favorite stories about her when she took a train to columbus later in her life to visit her son, the governor of ohio. The lady next to her struck up a conversation, are you going to columbus . Yes i am, she said. Oh, do you have family there . I have a son there. That is all she said. She did not feel any need to explain that her son was the governor of the state. So at 17, young William Mckinley goes to college in pennsylvania. The first year, he developed some kind of an illness, in ailment, and it was never quite explained or understood what it was. But he had to return to poland where he recuperated. By the time he recuperated, he could not go back to college because economic difficulties had rendered a need for all of the family members to go to work. So he got two jobs. He was a schoolteacher, 17 at that time, and he was a postal clerk. Then comes the civil war. I cant say that he enlisted immediately. He gave himself two days to think it over and sort of try to figure out with his cousin whether this was the right thing to do. His family was very strong abolitionists, his mother particularly. She subscribed to a weekly tribune which you could get in the mail which was reinforced of that sentiment. He and his cousin, william osborne, decided within a day and a half or so that they simply could not stay out of that war and enlisted. He had, i think i can accurately describe it as a Pretty Amazing war record. He entered as an 18 year old private. Immediately, his commanding officer, Rutherford Hayes, later president and great mentor for him. But Rutherford Hayes was an officer and became a general, he was wounded five times in the war. He became a congressman and a governor and then president. Hayes saw that this man had a remarkable organizational ability. So he made him a sergeant and made him quartermaster sergeant. He was sort of taking care of supplies. At the battle of antietam, the single most bloody day of battle in our history, he was two miles behind the lines because his job was to provide provisions. He heard about a unit that had gotten caught, trapped essentially, in the area of the battle where they couldnt move or get out. Nobody could get in to help them. They were starving and had run out of water. The battle began very early in the morning, so they had not had breakfast and its Late Afternoon so they had no lunch and had run out of water well before noon. So these troops were inaudible . So Young Mckinley concocted the idea of loading up a wagon with some hard tax, some bread and water and a few other things and getting that wagon to these troops. He would have to go through the battle to do it. He gets a friend or some other young soldier to help them load up the wagon and get in the wagon and they cut out through the surrounding forests. They encounter two officers who say this is ridiculous, you can do this, go back. But after they left, mckinley and his associate ignored it and went on. They got to the clearing and then they made a run for it. Bullets were whizzing by, cannonballs overhead and the back of the wagon was shot away. But they managed to get the provisions to these troops. God bless the lad said one of the old grizzled veterans. Immediately, as a result of that, he was promoted to commissioning and became lieutenant. I wont go into all of them, but he had other experiences somewhat like that in which he put himself very directly in harms ways. Almost always voluntarily. And each time, he got another promotion. So he ended the war as a brief it major. A 22yearold major. So he goes back to poland and decides he wants to become a lawyer and run for Congress Like his mentor, Rutherford Hayes. He sends a letter, hes kind of a storied id letter to hayes saying he wants to do. Basically what you did, sir. I want to do what you did. Hayes writes back a letter and says, yeah thats pretty good, but you know, frankly, with all this industrialization going on, i think maybe you should go into business. You could become a wealthy man by age 40 and really take care of your life. Well, mckinley carefully preserved the letter, but discarded the advice. He knew what he wanted. So he moved to canton, ohio where his sister had become a schoolteacher. After, it becomes a lawyer and hands out his shingle and becomes a civic leader in canton. He joined everything. He joined veterans groups. He joined the church. He joined the chamber of commerce. And immediately, he was pulled up into positions of leadership. So there was Something Special about this guy that led people to turn to him for leadership even though he was not a flamboyant person. I have a little passage in my book here describing him after his civil war experience. I think we see here in the book the first hint of what becomes an element of the mystery of William Mckinley. I write, the civil war transformed young William Mckinley, much as his fathers whitehot for just transformed crude iron into a gets a pig iron ready for more sophisticated uses. He went to war as an unseasoned teenager with only a vague sense of who he was or what he would do with his life. He left the army in a doll and had been severely tested in questions of intellect, administrative ability, leadership and courage. He passed these tests and demonstrated that men gravitated naturally to his side and that many older men were drawn into roles of solicitous mentorship. Yet this new confidence and sense of self settled upon him softly without ostentatious or bravado. It matched with a simplicity of temperament to produce a demeanor of heavy quiet. He learned the power of mystique. Of leaving unsaid which that did not need explicit expression. Of people keeping people guessing as to his intentions are motives. If this led some to underestimate his intellect or resolve, he did not seem bothered by it. Thats emerged some of the enigmatic elements of his persona, a congenial and easygoing demeanor shrouding and increasingly restless ambition. So he does run for congress. He becomes a congressman and served 14 years. He becomes chairman of the ways and Means Committee where hes in position to push his pet issue, tariffs. Protectionism. High trade tariffs to protect American Manufacturing and agriculture in a time when america was burgeoning as a productive machine. He even crafts a bill, a tariff bill, a very high tariff bill. The mckinley tariff they called it, of 1890. It turned out to be a bad move. The tariffs didnt go into effect for quite some time and a lot of businesses took the opportunity to raise prices because they were going to raise it anywhere. They figured the American People did not like that very much and a result was a disaster for republicans in the 1890 elections. For mckinley is sitting in his office as the returns are coming in, disheveled and the office is all messed up with postage everywhere and papers and buttons. He is sitting there smoking a cigar and in walks his good friend, the editor of the newspaper. The editor says, jim freeze says, its all over. Mckinley says nothing. He says what am i going to say the newspaper . Mckinley looks up with a look on his face and says, in the time of darkest true veil, victory is nearest. What . He just, he couldnt get pessimistic about anything. Hes congenital it impossible for him. So he lost his seat, but a year later he runs for governor. He serves to two year terms and now he is ready to run for president of the United States. He begins his campaign in 1895. He sends his good friend and the man who served him so well, mike hanna, a very successful industrialist of ohio from cleveland. He sends into new york on an important mission. You want to find out from the big bosses in new york, who basically owned the Republican Party in that state. He wanted to know if them and their lesser bosses who worked under them, if they would support mckinley. Because if they did, he was a front runner anyway. He probably would have the nomination sewed up. It would not even be a battle. So hannah comes back to cleveland and mckinley is there and they have a nice dinner. Then they go into hannahs study lined with books and settled themselves into overstuffed leather chairs and light at their cigars. Hannah is pretty decided. He says, well governor, its all over with the shouting. These guys are all go for you. There are conditions. He did not seem particularly disturbed by the conditions. Mckinley says, what are they . He says, well, flat once the patronage in new york of course. Quaint and pennsylvania. Manly wants the whole of new england. He takes off a couple of others. He says, oh yeah, plaid also wants to be treasury secretary. Oh, and he wants it in writing. It seems that eight years earlier at the beginning of the harris administration, he had gotten a similar commitment from paris and for his support, but the treasury secretary never materialized. So he wanted a promise in and out. Mckinley sort of looks ahead, pops on his cigar, stands up and walks a couple of steps back and forth. He turns to mark and says, market things in life sometimes come into higher price. If thats the price, its worth nothing to me and with less than the American People. If thats the price, im out of it. Hold on governor says hannah. Im just saying we could so it up tomorrow, but we dont need to sew it up tomorrow. We can beat these guys. That is what they had to do because quite and plaid and these guys were so upset that they went to other major politicians in various states and got him to try to become the favorite sons in those states so they could deny mckinley a first ballot nomination. In which case, they thought maybe they could pull up somebody else to play their game and pay their price. But he beat him. He beat him and he became the nominee. Then he had to go up against William Jennings brian. You know this story. Williams Jennings Brian was 36 years old when he ran for president in 1896. He had two terms in the house and then lost that seat. He ran for the senate and lost. He was one of the greatest orators of our history. We all know that he got himself on this platform, the podium of the democratic convention, and he gave his famous cross of gold speech. You shall not press the throne of thorns upon our head. He filtered his fingers across his face like blood trickling down. You shall not crucify us on a cross of gold. The convention went wild. The reason was the country was in extremists. The panic of 1893 was still very much with the country and the south and west particularly, the rural areas were really suffering. There was not enough liquidity in their view. So what they needed was the free coinage of silver and that was what the rallying cry was. And hannah became the man who was going to lead that charge. And he did. He got on trains and crisscrossed the country. He was all over the place. He was spending amazing amounts of time. He would have days on which he would get up and his first speech would be at seven in the morning and his last speech would be at 10 00 at night. Mckinley cannot compete with that. For one thing, he had a wife was infirm. We can talk about that maybe in the queue and a because its pretty interesting, but i want to keep this thing going. She was somewhat in firm and he did not want to take her on a tour and did not want to leave her in canton, or in washington. So he concocted this famous front porch strategy. 750,000 americans came to canton, ohio. They lined up and came and spoke with the governor as he stayed on his front porch. They destroyed his yard, by the way, but who cared. It was amazing effort. What we see in politics today, control the message. Well, mckinley controlled the message because these various groups it could be a church group or a labor group or an African American organization or various things that will come and say this day works for us. He had all kinds of people working on this. They would send back a letter and say, what are you going to say . What questions do you have . What is the point you want to make . So he knew exactly what they were going to say. All the reporters from the country where theyre taking notes and he basically was quasiorchestrated. Well, it worked. He became president. So now, i am going to step back and im going to try to describe what kind of a man had emerged through these experiences, starting with the civil war and that sort of sense of self that he developed as a result of his success in the war. So he seemed on the outside to be a very pleasant person. He was congenial. He did not seem to be a man of force. A lot of people wondered whether he was really a leader. He was in incrementalist in terms of the way he managed things. He didnt try to push too hard. I will say that he was not a visionary. He was not a man of imagination. In his day, the door roosevelt was a man of imagination. General nejame. These were men of imagination who had this great vision about american greatness and how america could bust out into the world. That is not where mckinley was, but it turns out he had amazing capacity to see events as they were unfolding with clarity. And find ways to sort of mesh them in ways that would allow him to sort of nudge events in the favored direction. This gave him a great deal of subterranean force. Its that heavy quiet that i was talking about. On top of that, he had an iron will beneath that surface. He always seemed to get his way somehow. Sometimes, he did it by convincing people to do what he wanted them to do while thinking that it was their idea. One of the great lawyers of his time, was his war secretary and also t. R. Leader. He said he almost always got his way in part, because he did not care who got the credit. It was not important to him at all unlike t. R. And he had a close friend who said i dont think mckinley let anything stand in the way of his own advancement. The wife of a very prominent ohio politician at the time and in it intermittent ally and advisory of mckinleys, more often an adversary, talk about the masks that he wore. The masks werent phony. He was an affable man. He was a pleasant fellow. He was generous spirited. But behind those masks was this iron will and this desire to succeed. My favorite example of this are the words from an ohio congressman of that time, then butter worth. But are worth, i came across him in the mark hannah papers because they were Close Friends and wrote a lot of letters back and forth. I could see they were close and initially concluded that butter worth must be part of the politicians and ohio that clustered around hanna and mckinley. But it became kind of clear so i got more and more into these letters, that butterworth, while he left hannah, was a little wary of mckinley. Then i came across a Washington Post article in which butterworth was talking about mckinley. He used as a kind of illustration, a sort of idea of how mckinley operated. He said if mckinley and i were walking through and orchard with but one bearing tree, and that tree headbutt to apples, mckinley would walk under that tree, he would pick the two apples, he would put one in his pocket and take a bite out of the other one. He would then turn to me and say, then, do you like apples . I think what butterworth was trying to say was that he was very congenial, but he always seem to get the apples. He says he managed by indirection from his shadows. Im going to talk a little bit about some of the elements and examples that emerged during his presidency. One would be the spanish american war. And the book on mckinley, i will speak about what kept him from having the reputation that i believe he reserves. The book on mckinley is that he did not want to really go to war with spain. The American People and congress basically thrust him against his will towards a war that he did not want. My view is that if you study this carefully and you understand mckinley, you realize that this isnt what happened at all. When mckinley was elected, it was a terrible and very bloody and very awful insurrection going on in cuba. The indigenous folks wanted independence from the spanish. This had been going on, there had been a previous tenyear insurrection that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. I cant remember, i think 100 or 200,000. It had finally settled, but it had sort of reemerged now. It was destabilizing the caribbean. It was putting americans who were trying to do business in cuba at risk. It was also opening up the possibility that other european powers could see the chaos and come in and take over cuba, which would be the last thing the United States would want. It was one thing to have a fading power like spain and cuba in the caribbean, which we consider to be our sphere of influence. They were there as a legacy of imperial power. But to have germany say, or some other european power come in, that is untenable. So there was a great deal of anguish and anger in congress and around the country. Most of it based on humanitarian grounds, not geopolitical factors, but that was a factor as well. And mckinley comes in to the presidency and takes over from grover cleveland. Grover cleveland had essentially favored the spanish over the cubans. Not because he liked the spanish particularly, but because he was a status quo guy. So his view was as soon as spain can put down this interaction, we can go back down to the status quo and everything will be stable and everything will be fine. Not very realistic. Mckinley rejected that out of hand from almost day one. From day one, he concluded i think the record is very clear if you studied carefully, he wanted spain out of the caribbean. He wanted spain out of cuba, what he did not want to go toward to do it if he could avoid that war. So what did he do . He opened up a negotiation with a program of diplomacy with spain. Spain realized that america has become a pretty powerful country and this is our neighborhood and it would be very difficult if they went to war with us. They did not want to war with us. And so they entered into the diplomacy as well. Pretty soon, they could see that mckinley, is diplomacy was behind his affability and the velvet glove was an iron fist. He was essentially saying to them that we want this work and. We do not care how you do it. You can win it or you can negotiate an end to it, that probably needs more autonomy for the insurrection estates. The humans dont seem to want that, but that is a possibility. Or you can bud out, but you need to get this war over because it is destabilizing the region and it is untenable and unsaid was the American People who do not want to put up with it for much longer. So spain finally sort of said, he cant talk to us like that. We are a sovereign country. Cuba belongs to us. It doesnt matter how close it is to your shores. No, but out they essentially said. Mckinley never wavered. He just kept pushing and got more and more angry. Who knows what would have happened if the main battleship and not blown up in the harbor. But the fact that that battleship was theirs is testament also to mckinleys resolve that he was going to make sure that the spanish were out of the caribbean. Because ostensibly, it was to protect american lives that would be at risk as a result of the insurrection because the spanish people in cuba were getting increasingly angry or toward america. Nevertheless, it did blow up and war became inevitable. Another example is hawaii. We have to understand its an amazing story and its not a particularly entirely savory story about americans. But hawaii had been a stopping off place for americans for decades and for other countries as well. But ultimately, people with from america settled there and they were there for generations. Mostly running sugar plantations. Getting fabulously wealthy in the process. Pretty soon, they had so much financial power that they felt they should have political power to go with it. And they ended up up and being the royalty, the polynesian royalty, that had been governing and presiding over the Hawaiian Islands for decades, centuries. That happened on Benjamin Harrisons watch. Cleveland in his second term was very upset about it. He even contemplated going in there and removing those people from the government, but he didnt really want a war. He didnt want to have americans fighting essentially americans or former americans. So that was a state play. Mckinley, again, rejected the policy of his predecessor and made it very clear through subterranean diplomacy he liked subterranean diplomacy, that he was very interested in acquiring cuba through annexation. The americans were now running cuba wanted that also. It generated a lot of anti expansionist sentiment and fervor in congress and other places. Among intellectuals and writers, mark twain and others. He never wavered. He got the negotiation. He sent it to congress. He could not get it through the senate as a treaty, so he didnt give up. He sent it back to congress as a to be dealt with by both houses, which did not require two thirds vote soon. That is how we got hawaii. Then there was the philippines. When the spanish superspy peace after three months of that war, he basically said fine, im more than happy to negotiate a peace treaty. But heres the deal. Spain has to leave cuba. Well take it temporarily, but its going to be independent. Spain has to leave puerto rico, that came out of nowhere, but we had conquered puerto rico. Spain has to give us an island in the pacific, it turned out to be guam, and that has to happen before we enter into negotiations. Thats really tough diplomacy. And then, he basically said as for the philippines, which we had essentially acquired we took over luzon after george do we destroy the spanish fleet. He said the disposition of the philippines is open to negotiation. Well thank you, mr. Mckinley, the spanish were saying. They asked the french ambassador of the United States to operate on their behalf to negotiate for them. He said to mckinley, you cant really get any more glory than youve already gained in this war of yours. Im assuming youll be very generous. He found out mckinley wasnt very generous at all. But then the question was, what was he going to do about the philippines . While the negotiations in paris were going on, the peace treaty negotiations, he pondered it. He kind of concluded, ultimately, that he had to have a station because they were building a global navy and you could not have a global navy without calling stations and you could not have those with that controlling territory. So he had to have a cooling station. But he couldnt really control the bay unless he had all of the island. If we had those on, spain wasnt going to be able to keep the philippines at all. The people of the philippines hated the spanish. So now that they had been defeated, they werent going to be able to go back in their. The question was, whos going to have the philippines . It wasnt going to be the filipino people, unfortunately. So it was going to have to be either us or germany or some other european power, most likely germany. Germany was on the prowl for colonies. If germany had all these other islands, then it would not be secure. He basically decided on taking the whole thing. That got him into a war, very much like the vietnam war. It was insurrection and it was brutal warfare and very difficult. Theres a sympathetic fellow who ran that insurrection it was ultimately captured. It broke the back of the insurancey, but it went on for years into Theodore Roosevelts administration. So, as i say, that seems to be a consequential presidency. So why doesnt he get more credit . Why does he get no respect . One reason has to do with his secession, Teddy Roosevelt. If you read my book, youll see im a great admirer of Teddy Roosevelt. He was a great genius. You might have been the biggest genius ever to be president , what he could do is amazing. But he never shared credit with anybody and he was self absorbed. Even his kids said that he longed to be the bride at every wedding. And the corpse at every funeral. When mckinley was killed in buffalo, six months into his second term, Teddy Roosevelt immediately, when he became president , words to the fact that i intend to govern just as my predecessor did and his agenda will be my agenda or words to that effect. Within two days, he gets to the white house from buffalo and brings in a bunch of reporters. The market did not swoon so he did not feel like he had to say those things anymore. He said i intend to govern this as if the electors elected me as president and not mckinley. It was a remarkable thing to be said while mckinley was lying in state in the capital rotunda. But roosevelt was always conscious of the narrative and he always put himself at the center of the narrative. And over the succeeding decades, isnt mireing geographic adoring biographer is basically bought the narrative. The narrative would not work if they sort of said, well t. R. Did these marvelous incredible things, but the foundation was laid by his predecessor. So in my view, mckinley gets kind of the short end of the stick in terms of that interpretation. In describing this turn of events and this historical narrative building, i describe t. R. And i will quote a bit from him this here. Impetuous, valuable, from using, grandiose, prone to marking his territory with political defiance. Roosevelt stir the imagination of the American People as mckinley never had. To the major solidity, safety and caution, the rough rider offered a mind that moved by flashes of win or sudden impulses as he was described. He took the American People on a political rollercoaster ride, and too many, it was thrilling. It was thrilling and it was significant and it helped define america in the 20th century. But behind him was one William Mckinley, who may be mysterious, but is a consequential president and i think perhaps he was even worth the three years of toil that i put in on his behalf. Thank you very much. I think we can have some questions. Would you please come up to the microphone if you have questions . So people on tv watching can hear you. Have you changed your ranking of mckinley since your book . Where i stand i dont offer my own ranking. I talk about what president s had done and what constitutes greatness or mediocrity, or whatever. The answer to that, my own destination ncs, higher. The president s i consider to be failures are not consequential, i would certainly put them above those people. I think he would preside in my pantheon i hadnt really focused on where id put him directly, but somewhere around there. Here we go. Can you talk about ida as an invalid and how it shaped the americans compassion for him and the death of her children. When mckinley moved as a young lawyer, he encountered young ida. She was the daughter of probably the richest man. Her grandfather had bought a train present pennsylvania by oxen. Started the cannon repository. He was a successful newspaper and her father went into mining, banking. She was quite lovely. She was a sparkling personality. She had many, many suitors. They were married. There were thousand people at her wedding. According to the repository. It could be an exaggeration, i dont know. Nevertheless, it was a big, big wedding. It was a big occasion at the time. He was moving up into politics. It was kind of a storybook thing. A year after they were married, the first daughter arise. Katie. About a year leader, their second daughter arrived. She becomes pregnant for the second time. During that pregnancy she learns that her mother is dying, probably of cancer. They are very, very close. It affected her greatly. Whether it affected her pregnancy is not act absolutely clear. She had a troubled pregnancy. Her daughter lived only five months. Its sent her into a tremendous depression. It looked like she would never come out of it. He coaxed her out of it. It took a lot of patience. Refusing to let go. Then, sometime after that, her first daughter katie died. Then she went back into a terrible depression. During this time, Something Else happened. Its described as a carriage accident, but nobody knows what exactly happened. I suspect she fell backwards and hurt her spine and some way. She became rather a mobile. It was sort of intermittent, but she was often confined to a wheelchair. She often walked with the king. She could walk down the stairs with a cane. They had a new elevator at the white house, but it did not work. So if it did not work, she would walk down the stairs. But they would have to carry her up the stairs. On top of all this, shoe had epilepsy. In those days it was considered a mental illness. These seizures would come, so it affected their lives. It affected ida tremendously. Her father let her run the bank when he was traveling around on his other business duties. She was running the bank. She was very unusual and those days. Now she sort of reduced to a sedentary life. She crochets and Little Things like that. She becomes narrow in her outlook. Very devoted to her husband. It was the greatest politician in the history of america. But she because somewhat peevish. Difficult. He never wavered in his devotion to her. He just basically accepted that. Just as part of life. When this became known. It was emerging as a National Figure politically, it became an element of identity for mckinley, the man who took such good care of his troubled wife. There are some people, and i dont gain say this at all who suspect that it was manipulative to some extent as a sort of political advantage. That is the story. Yes, sir. What happened to him, that tee are was able to he died of cancer in the middle of the first term, i think in the third year of the first term. Mckinley did not have a Vice President for a significant part of his first term. Tea are, meanwhile, he had been his assistant navy secretary. He was unsure he wanted to give t. R. The job. He got into he was pushing for him to have that job. They promised, him no, no t. R. Well not do that. He did an amazing thing. He resigned the office. He put together the rough riders. He did an extremely courageous, to the point of insanity, on the sentiment ridge, they called it capitol hill, he becomes along with george dewy, one of the two greatest heroes from that war. The American People left him. He knew exactly how to play it. When the convention, the Second Convention comes up in 1900, the Convention Just goes crazy. It was a forced it could not be resisted. Montana did not want him. Mckinley wrote him. Cease and desist. I cant you cannot put me in position to be against the senate of the convention. So he becomes Vice President. He sends a note to mckinley after the convention saying okay, im fine. Youve admonished me, but im happy with it. Your job is to live with it for the next four years. When he died, or cannon said now that cowboy could be the president of the United States. I am curious as heck on how mckinley handled the confederacy. At that time, the south was still, you know, sort of in and out. Of course that brings up civil rights and things like that. Policies toward the former confederate states. Did he want them back . Was he forgiving . If you want to reconcile with the south . And indirectly, how did that approach the civil rights positions . It is a very good question. It cant be ignored. Heres what id have to say about that. You have to go back to the great mentor, referred be hayes. He became president by making what you might call a deal to end reconstruction. A lot of recent historians who were sort of giving a revision as a view reconstruction, considering that would be a terrible thing because it kept African Americans of the south down for the next hundred years. But the deal was essentially, look, youve gotta stitch this country back together and it wont be easy. So were probably going to have to sacrifice civil rights for a period of time. Mckinley and rutherford b. Hayes were abolitionists. They were liberal on civil rights, but they cut that deal. By the time italy was president , he still was concerned about bringing the sections back american more help the great deal. Im drawing a blank. The Great Southern cavalry generals. Yes, thank you. Gave them a command. When he was in cuba, and they got the spanish on the run, he kind of lost sight of where he was and said, weve got those yankees on the run. They werent yankees, they were spanish. His position towards African Americans ended up being patronizing. There are worst words you could use. But basically, by patronizing i mean, he had a Good Relationship with a lot of African American organizations, and he praised them for working so hard on under difficult circumstances. He said you people do wonderful things. Keep at it. But he was not lifting his finger for them and ultimately, some of these groups were becoming quite agitated. Was one of the ones in this cabin in a confederate farmer . He wanted to get somebody who is a southerner. He ended up getting the one person that was assumed to be sympathetic in the south. He was for maryland. That was as far south as he got for the cabinet making. Yes, sir. Who would be the politician in recent times, who you would say was most similar to mckinley . I would say be eisenhower. In fact, i see significant parallels between eisenhower and mckinley. There is a book about how eisenhower managed from the shadows and managed by and direction, and people thought that he was when he didnt want to explain something, he would become inarticulate, especially stevenson, he would say this guy cannot even express some self, but it was all with a purpose. I think that was somewhat the way mckinley operated. I think those two people were quite similar. Sir. Two unrelated questions. First is, you mentioned mckinleys relationship to imperialism. There was an anti imperious william james, a harvard professor. Strongly, an imperialist. He would Say Something about mckinley. The other question was about his assassination. Could use a word about that . Well, yes indeed. There was a very strong anti imperialist wave of sentiment that emerged in america. Mark twains involved in it. Another set of people of prominence. Carl shirts. Mckinley was stung somewhat. He never took personally any of the turmoil politics, and so he also had sort of upped the incidents of the president talking to the American People. He made a lot of speeches. Truman had made a lot of speeches. Some of them were designed to make major policy addresses. He would explain what the policies were. Why he had done it. He understood that he had this position. It was particularly bad when Foreign Affairs got pretty bad with philippine insurrection. He was on the defensive. He basically just handled it as part of the Great American assassination. He went he was supposed to be at the great pan American Exposition in buffalo in the spring, but he was traveling in california. Part of that policy he had, practice of traveling around, giving speeches, explaining himself to the American People. He felt that was important. One of the things that led one of his academic to suggest he was the first modern president among other things. Nevertheless, i think that section developed an infection that got into she almost died. It went immediately right back to washington allison as they werent san francisco. I never made it. His appearance at the exposition was to postpone to the fault to the fall of september. It is when the nra kissed concocted the idea of assassinating him. Mckinley was very fatalistic about, maybe part of the optimism, about the prospect of anybody who could possibly harm the president , and so he would talk openly with people. Secret Service People went crazy, but he did not worry about it very much. He had his hand in a bandage. It was like he had been injured. Mckinley reached for his left hand. With his right hand he put the pistol in his chest and fired at point blank. He did not penetrate very much, but mckinley went back on his heel and he fired a second time and it went into his abdomen. They couldnt find the bullet. They operated rather quickly and couldnt find the bullet. They concluded that looking for it was probably more dangerous than leaving it and so they did. And he was recuperating nicely, but in those days you didnt really understand infection and sepsis and those things that emerged. That took him down. I think he lasted something in the neighborhood of less than two weeks after the assassination before he died. I believe thats it degree much. Thank you very much. applause mr. Merry will be signing the book in the hall. Thank you. Up next on history bookshelf, jan van meter explores the Historical Context of several catchphrases and slogans used throughout American History in his book tippecanoe and tyler to. We recorded this top in new york city in 2008. I thought i would start by spending five or ten minutes just talking about the book. Partly the kinds of questions wh