So, good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the kansas city public library. Robert merry, this is his second presentation in the somewhat hallowed halls of the kansas city public library. Five star library this week from the public journal. Thank you. Hes a graduate of the university of washington. He has a masters degree from Columbia University school of journalism. Hes been a reporter for the observer, the wall street journal, managing editor, executive editor and editor in chief of congressional quart ley and more recently, the american conservative. The american conservative, he says its collaborative, but it sounds like robert merry. This is a description of their philosophy. We believe in constitutional government, fiscal prudence, sound monetary policy, clearly delineated borders, authentically free markets and Foreign Policy mixed with diplomatic acuity. We adhere closely to institutional max um, principles over party. One could wish there were more of that kind of true conservatism wandering around the beltway than some who profess to be conservatives. Hes also the author of books on those ultimate journalistic insiders, student and joseph alsop. Hes written an analysis a and a lament for american Foreign Policy. And a rehabilitation of president james poke and now, president mckinley, architect of the american century. Both poke and mckinley, he makes the case for the the importance of their expansion in america. In extending their boundaries f further than anyone other than Thomas Jefferson in the louisiana puchls and mckinley in the non colonial imperialism, i quote him, that did bring us gee graphical expansion in hawaii and puerto rico. More importantly, the expansion of American Power as a world power manifested in the war, the battles in cuba and the philippines and control over cuba and the fill foophilippine extended period of time. The open door of china and the american economy. Hope has been called the most successful president , incorporate california, oregon, texas, reduced the tariff and reinstate the independent treasury. You can see me after class to explain that one. Were all accomplished. Hes the only president who saw his entire Program Written into law. Hes also called one of our most morally degraded because of the shenanigans associated with the war, which made part of that program possible. Robert merry sides with the diagnosis of him as a successful politician. With mckinley, he gives us a more subtle case, but perhaps just as Important Program of the president to give the United States a new place in the international stage. The only stated program of the mckinley campaign for president was on the tariff. With which he was more than anyone else identified the high tariff. Historians have had a hard time diseacerning a Foreign Policy, t merry makes a strong case that he was the guide who gave us empire and it wasnt lodge or roosevelt or hahn or john hay, but the deliberate, very subtle mastery of william mckinley. This book is a continuation of an ongoing effort of merry to reverse the trend of contemporary academics to, i quote him, devour our heritage of moralizing from a safe distance of the ivory tower. Hes created a character study of one of the architects of the american century. Ladies and gentlemen, robert merry. Thank you. Thank you very much. It is a pleasure to be here and a great pleasure to see all of you here. This is actually my third time at this library and ive spoken at a number of libraries. Not a lot of five star libraries. So congratulations on that. He didnt mean to. To this volume on mckinley, i was pleased to see that the wall street journal sort of picked up on that in writing a headline over its review of my book, which by the way, was very favorable. Thats my effort to immulate donald trump. I didnt set out to didnt know there was a mystery. I didnt understand mckinley well enough when i started this project. To understand that theres something mysterious about him, two sentences, which was given all the consequential things that happened on his president ial watch. Why does he not rise higher of historical conscious . Given the fact he was a nonflamboyant, undramatic personage, how did all those unconscious gwen skongconscious . The guy started to drive me crazy because i had a hard time getting a handle on him. He was not a forceful man, yet all these things happened on his presidency. And i was having a hard time sort of bringing this to life. The historical consensus on him was that yeah, yeah, okay, big things happen on his watch. Yeah. Fine. But he didnt have anything to do with it. He was just president. And that didnt really strike me as being totally credible. Thats what i called the leaf in the wind theory of william mckinley. An example is a book by allen richtman and ken desell, 13 keys of the presidency. Which i quote a lot. Its about how the presidency works. But they have a chapter on mckinley and they write that he enjoyed quote, one of the more successful incumbencies in American History, but then add that he found himself quote, benefitting in part from circumstances beyond his control. And theres the rub. He was seen as less than the sum of his deeds. What struck me, which i talked about some years ago, that in those poll, he comes in not exactly sort of middle average a, maybe upper average. He comes in at like 60, 50, maybe 14, occasionally. Often, hes below such undistinguished or failed president s as chester arthur, who was a caretaker president. Pretty good one, given his background with the machine of new york, but nevertheless, a caretaker president. Martin van buren, who was a failed president. He presided over a terrible recession, depression, that he couldnt control. Rutherford hayes, who became president on the basis of one of the great 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 or the voters after each. Thus making him the only twotime oneterm president in our history. And john quincy adams, who was swept away in a populous wave at the behest of andrew jackson. So, the mystery deepens. Im going to urge you not to just tick off bullet poins, but the political drama. He led us into a war with spain in 19 1898. It ended up being a huge success. It was a threemonth war. We destroy ed the spanish empir essentially. In the process, we destroyed two spanish fleets. The atlantic and the pacific fleets. We became an empire by acquiring from spain, puerto rico, guam and the philippines. We liberated cuba many the caribbean. We could have kept it, but we made a commitment that we wouldnt. He kicked spain out of the caribbean and turned it into an american lake. For good measure. Because we noted he acquired hawaii through negotiation and acquisition and annexation. He set in motion the events that led eventually, i saw the display outside, to the panama canal. And tr 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, who was an antiexpansionist and said no, no, were going to move on this kcanal and set in motion the studies and the actions and the planning that led to the canal. He brought about the jobs in china. The european and japanese powers. He created a concept with trade reciprocity, which when i was covering trade policy in the 1980s, when it was a hot issue for the wall street journal, reciprocity was really what was then called sort of fair trade. Make it even so we can have this exchange of goods across borders. He created the concept of noncolonial imperialism. It was on his watch that we established a special relationship with britain. Under the cleveland administration, we almost went to war with britain over a sill border dispute in south america, but after a ththat, we never ha anything like that. 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 currencyish was probably the hottest in our history and he essentially solved that in his first term. So this is a big collection of accomplishments and the question is, to what extent does he deserve the credit. I came to the idea that the leaf in the wind theory was a myth and i set out to explode that myth in this book. Ill let you decide. Whether i succeed in that and im happy to do that because you cant decide unless you buy the book, so. So who was this man . Born in 1843, he was the seventh of nine children. Eight of whom lived to adult hood hood. He grew up in ohio. Small town ohio. Imbued with what you might call the ohio culture at the time. Which was a reflection of what people of those times, in those times, considered christian values. Thrift optimism. Mod es thety. Hard toil. His father ran and owned blacks furnaces around ohio. Worked very, very hard. His mother had a strong sense of civic and religious duty. She was a very civic minded. Worked hard for her church and communities. They were in poland for most of the growing up years of william. The mother also was imbued with all those things that i just talked about. Those socalled christian values and one of my favorite stories about her was she took a train to columbus later in her life. To visit her son, the governor of ohio. 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. Thats all she said. Didnt feel any need to explain that her son was governor of the state. So at 17, Young William goes off to college in pennsylvania. First year, he developed some kind of an illness, an ailment. It was never quite explained or understood stood what it was, but he had to return to poland where he recuperated, but by the time he recuperated, he couldnt 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. Like 17 at that time. 18. And he was a postal clerk. And 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, very strong abolitionist. His mother, particularly. She subscribed to Horace Greeleys weekly tribune that you could get in the mail and reenforced that sentiment. So he and his cousin, william osborne, decided within day and a half that they couldnt stay out of that war and they enlisted. He had, i think i can accurately describe as a Pretty Amazing war record. He entered as a 18yearold private. Immediately, his commanding officer, rutherford b. Hayes, later president. Great men r tor of him. But Rutherford Hayes was an officer. Became a general. Was wounded five times in the war. Became a congressman. Became governor then president. And hayes saw that this young man had a remarkable organizational ability. So he made him a sergeant and made him quart maer master sergeant. So he was sort of taking care of simplies. At the battle of antetum, he was two miles behind the lines because his job was to provide provisions and he heard about a unit that had gotten caught, trapped, essential ly, in the area of the battle that they couldnt move. Couldnt get out. Couldnt, nobody could get in to help them. And they were starving. And they had, had run out of water. The battle began very early in the morning so they hadnt had breakfast. Now its late afternoon, they hadnt had lunch and had run out of water well before noon. And Young Mckinley concocted the idea of loading up a wagon with coffee and water and a few other things and getting that wagon to these troops. Hed having to go right through the battle to do it. He gets a friend or some other young soldier to help him load up the wagon and get in the wagon and they head out through the surrounding forest. Encounter two officers who say this is ridiculous. You cant 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. Cannon balls overhead. And the back of the wagon was shot away, but they managed to get provisions to these troops. God bless the lad, said one of the old veterans. Immediately, as a result of that, was promoted to commission. Became lieutenant. And then he had, i wont go into all of them, but he had other experiences. Somewhat like that, in which he put himself directly in harms way. Almost always voluntarily. And each time, he got another promotion. So he ended the as a major. 22yearold major. So, he goes to poland. Wants to run for Congress Like his mentor, Rutherford Hayes. He sent a starry eyed letter to hayes telling him thats what he wanted to do. I want to do what you did. He gets a letter 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 get yourself, 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 moves to canton, ohio, where his sister had become a schoolteacher. And after he becomes a lawyer and hangs out a shingle. And becomes a civic leader in canton. He joined everything. He joined veterans groups. He join ed 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. And i have a little passage in my book here describing him after his civil war experience. And i think we see here in the book, the first hint of what, of what becomes an element of the mystery of william mckinley. So i write, the civil war transformed Young William mckinley much as his fathers white hot forges transformed crude iron into pig iron ready for more sophisticated uses. He went to r war as an unseasoned teenager with only a vague sense of who he was or what he would do in his life. He left the army an adult who had been severely questioned in intellect, administrative ability, leadership and courage. He passed these tests and that many older men were drawn into roles of solicitous mentorship. Yet this new confidence and sense of self settled upon him softly, yet meshed with a simplicity of temperatufrment t produce a heavy quiet. He left unsaid that which didnt need explicit expression. Of keeping people guessing as to his intentions or motives. If this led some to underestimate his intellect or resolved, he didnt seem bothered by it. Thus emerged some of the enigmatic element of his persona. An easy going demeanor shrouded in restless ambition. So he runs for congress. Serves 14 years. Becomes chairman of the ways and Means Committee where hes in position to push his pet issue. Tear i haves. Protectionism. High trade tariffs to protect american fmanufacturing and agriculture at a time when america was burgeoning as a pru productive machine. He even as chairman of ways and means, crafts a very high tariff bill. The mckinley tariff, they called it. 1890. Turned out to be a bad move. Didnt do into effect for quite some time and a lot of businesses took the opportunity to raise prices because they were going to raise any way. The American People didnt like that very much and the result was a disaster for republicans. In the 1890 elections and poor mckinley is sitting in his office as an internship coming in, the office is all messed up with posters everywhere and papers and buttons. Hes sitting there smoking a cigar. In walks his good frepd of the ed r tor of the newspaper and he says, jim free, says its all over. Mckinley says nothing. What am i going to say in the newspaper . And mckinley sort of looks up with a pensive look on his face and he says, in the time of d k darkest victory is nearest. What . He couldnt get pessimistic about anything. It was congenitally impossible. He lost his seat. Serves two, twoyear terms and now hes ready to run for the president of the United States. Begins his campaign in 1895. He sends his good friend and his sort of his, the man who serves him so well, mark hannah, very succes successful industrialist from cleveland. Sends him to new york on a very important mission. He wants to find out from tom plat of new york, who basically owned the Republican Party in that state. Matth matth matthew quay and he wanted to know them and the sort of lesser bosses who sort of worked under him if they would support mckinley because if they did, he was a frontrunner any way. Probably would have the nomination sewed up. Probably wouldnt even be a battle. So mckinleys there. They have a nice dinner and go into hannahs study. Lined with books and they settle themselves into overstuffed leather chairs and light up their cigars. Hannahs pretty excited. Well, governor, its all over with the shouting. These guys will all go r for you. There are conditions. He didnt seem particularly disturbed by the conditions. Mckinley says, well, what are they . Well, plat wants the patronage and quay, pennsylvania and manley wants the whole new england and he ticks off a couple of others. Then plat also wants to be treasury secretary. Oh, and he wants it in writing. Seems that eight years earlier at the beginning of the harris administration, he had gotten a similar commitment from harrison for his support, but the treasury secretaryship never materialized so he wanted a promissory note. Mckinley sort of looks ahead. Puffs on his cigar. He gets up, walks a couple of steps back and forth, turns to mark, says some things in life just come at too high a price. If thats the price, its worth less to me and its worth less to the American People. If thats the price, im out of it. Hold on, governor, says hannah. Im just saying that we can sew it up tomorrow, but we dont need to sew it up tomorrow. We can beat these guys and thats what they had to do because quay and plat and these guys were so upu set that they went to other major politicians in various states and got them to try to become 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 who would play their game and pay their price. But he beat him. He be