Married, their first daughter arrives, katy. A little bit more than a year after that, their second daughter arrives. And its difficult to write about someone who, you know, you feel responsible for bad things that happened and you have to try to have enough detachment to present the good and bad points. Terrible depression. During this time, Something Else happened. Its described as a karnl accident, but nobody knows exactly what happened. I suspect she fell backwards and hurt her spine in some way, because she became rather immobile. Sort of intermittent, but she was often confined to a wheelchair. Even when she wasnt, she walked with a cane. When she was at the white house, she could walk down the stairs with a cane, had a new elevator in the white house, but it didnt work much of the time, so if it didnt work, he would have to carry her up the stairs, which he did. Then on top of all this, she developed epilepsy, which in those days, which was considered kind of mental illness. You didnt want anyone to know you were mentally ill, but these seizures would come and it affected their marriage, their lives. It affected ida tremendously. Her father let her run the bank when he was traveling around and as a young woman as 20, she was running this bank. It was very unusual in those days. Now, she reduced to srt of sed dare life. She crochets and does other things like that and becomes sort of narrow in her outlook. Very devoted to her husband. Thinks hes the greatest politician in the history of america. And but she becomes somewhat peevish and somewhat difficult. He never waivered in his devotion to her and just basically accepted that as sort of part of life. So, when this became kind of known as he was emerging as a National Figure politically, it became a an element of identity for mckinley. The man who took such good care of his troubled wife. There are some who suspect it was manipulated to some extent as a sort of political advantage. So thats the story. Yes, sir. The first Vice President , what happened to him that tr was able to get on the ticket . Hobart died of cancer in the middle of the first term. I think in the third year of the first term sochlt the result was that mckinley did not have a Vice President. For a significant part of his first term. And tr, meanwhile, had been his assistant navy secretary. Mckinley wasnt sure he wanted to give tr that job. He didnt know him that well, but knew he of tended to be impetuous and got into a rouse as he said to one of trs good friends, who was pushing for him to have that job. And they promised him, no, no, trs not going to do that. Hes going to be real. Hes going to be controllable. Well, he wasnt. But he did an amazing thing. When the war came, he resigned the office. He put together the rough riders and did it extremely courageous when he ran up san juan hill, actually kettle hill, and becomes along with george dewy, one of the two greatest american heroes. They loved him. He knew exactly how to play it. When the Second Convention comes up in 1900, it goes crazy for teddy and it was a force majeure. Couldnt be resisted. Mark hannah didnt like tr, tried to resist and mckinley had to send a note to him saying cease and desist because you cant put me in this position of beginning against the sentiment of the convention. Mark hannah sends a note to mckinley saying it came out fine. You had to admonish me, but im happy with it. Your job now is to live for the next four years and when he died, mark hannah is quoted as saying now that cowboy is going to be president of the united states. Fz yes, sir. At that time, of course the south was still, you know, sort of in and out of the union and of course that brings up civil rights and things like that. But what was his policies toward the farmer Confederate States . Did he want them back . Was he a forgiving person . Did he want to reconcile with the south . And how did that approach the civil rights positions. You have to go back to his great mentor. Rudd hayes became president by making what you might call a deal to end reconstruction and a lot of recent historians, giving a revisionist deal of reconstruction is considering that to be a terrible thing because it kept africanamericans in the south down for the next 100 years. But the deal was essentially was weve got to stitch this country back together and its not going to be easy. Probably going to have to sacrifice civil rights for a period of time. But they cut that deal and so by the time mckinley was president , he was still, he was still concerned about bringing the sections back together. Spanish american war helped to heal. Drawing a blank, but youve got one of the Great Southern calvary generals. Wheeler. Wheeler. Yes, thank you. Gave him a command and when he was in cuba and they got the spanish on the run, he gets the he kind of louises, lost sight of where he was and said, we got, got those yankees on the run. They were spanish. His position towards africanamericans ended up being what i would call patronizing and you can, you can, there are worse words you can use and i wouldnt necessarily say those words, but basically, by patronizing, i mean he had a Good Relationship with a lot of africanamerican organizations. And he praised them for working so hard under difficult circumstances. Towards the end of his presidency, some of these groups were becoming quite agitated against him. One quick follow up. Was any of his cabinet former confederates, southern . No, he wanted to get so somebody who was a southerner. He got the one person assumed to be sympathetic to the south, from maryland. That was as far south as e he got in terms of his cabinet making it. Yes, sir. Who would be the politician in most recent times most similar to mckinley . I would say eisenhower. I see very significant parallels between them. Fred wingstein wrote the book about how eisenhower managed from the shadows and by direction and people thought he was sort of bumbling and when he didnt want to explain something, he would become inarticulate and everyone said, especially stevenson, would say this guy cant even express himself, but it was all with a purpose. And i think that that was somewhat the way mckinley operated. So i think those two people were quite similar. Two related questions. The first, you mentioned mckinleys relationship to empire. In 1898, there was an antiimperialist league. William james, harvard professor who was strongly against imperialism. You Say Something about mckinley and how he reacted to that criticism on imperialism then the other question was about his assassination. Could you say a word about that . Yeah. Well, yes, indeed, there was a strong Anti Imperialist Movement in america. Mark twain was involved in it. Carl shirts. And mckinley was stunned. He never took personally any of the turmoil politics and so, he, you also upped the incidence of the president talking to american people. He would explain what the policy was and why he had done it. He understood he had this opposition. It was bad when when foreign affairs, with the insurrection and he had, he was on the defensive. But he basically just handled it as part of the Great American debate. Assassination. He was supposed to be at the great pan American Exposition in buffalo in the spring of 190 1rks but he was traveling to california. Part of it, part of that policy he had, part of the practice he had of traveling around and giving speeches to the american people. He thought that was very important. One of the things that led one of his academic biographer to suggest he was the first modern president among other things, but never the less, ida got sick. She developed an infection. It got into her blood and she almost died. They went immediately back to washington, they were in san francisco. On the way to washington state. So the, his appearance was to postpone to the fall. To september. Thats when the anarchist concocted the idea of assassinating him. Mckinley was very fatalistic. Maybe part of that optimism about the prospect that anybody could possibly harm the president , so he would talk openly with people. Secret Service People like crazy, but he didnt worry about it very much and sawgas had his hand in a bandage, a sling, like it had been injured. Mckinley reached for his right hand, left hand, and fired it right pointblank. It did not penetrate very much, but mckinley went back on his feel hell and shallgas fired a second time. Went into his abdomen. Lodged there. They couldnt find the bullet. They operated rather quickly. Couldnt find the bullet, but concluded that looking for it was probably more dangerous than leaving it, so they did and he was recuperating nicely. Back in those days, they didnt really understand infection and sepsis. I think he lasted two weeks before he died. I believe thats it. Robert gray, thank you very, very much. Thank you. Mr. Gray will be signing the book in the hall. Thank you. Weeknights this month on American History tv. Were featuring the contenders. Looking at 14 president ial candidates who lost the election but had a lasting effect on u. S. Politics. Tonight we feature eugene debs. A fivetime president ial candidate for the socialist party. Watch tonight beginning at 8 00 p. M. Eastern and enjoy American History tv this week and every weekend on cspan3. The competition is on. Be a part of this years cspan student cam student. Middle and High School Students be the start of a National Conversation by making a six minute toumt i are exploring the issue you want the president and the congress to address in 2021. Be bold with your documentary. Be a winner theres 100,000 in total cash prizes. 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