Complete Life of William McKinley and Story of His Assassination: An Authentic and Official Memorial Edition, Containing Every Incident in the Career of the Immortal Statesman, Soldier, Orator and PatriotEverett, Marshall
History
Complete Life of William McKinley and Story of His Assassination: An Authentic and Official Memorial Edition, Containing Every Incident in the Career of the Immortal Statesman, Soldier, Orator and Patriot
After his defeat for Congress McKinley remained quietly at his home,
where he was again called from its privacy to consider the question of
his nomination for the Governorship of Ohio. Governor Campbell had
frequently boasted that he had made Ohio a permanent Democratic State,
but McKinley dispelled his illusion. The Republican State convention was
held at Columbus in June, 1891, and at it William McKinley was nominated
Republican candidate for the Governorship, and the following November
was elected Governor by 21,000 majority.
It was a typical “campaign of education” that McKinley made at this time
and in it he visited eighty-six counties and delivered one hundred and
thirty addresses. In all of that arduous campaign, as well as the many
others that he made during his political life, McKinley’s speeches were
always models of unaffected art. There was never anything that even so
much as gave a hint or suggestion of “playing to the gallery.” There
were no funny declamations, no pandering to anything or anybody. He
stood strong, self-reliant, comfortably poised, well at ease; he spoke
with an evenly-modulated and clear voice; his enunciation was distinct
and his words short and simple. There was truth in sentences and
sincerity in his declarations. Everybody who heard him believed what he
said. He had the happy faculty of talking to all manner of persons in a
way that commanded respect with awe. He was easily approached—made those
who spoke to him feel “at home.” He gave comradeship naturally and
commanded perfect respect in such a way that the visitor, the highest or
humblest, never felt. Beside his magnetism as a politician and an
orator, there was a personal charm about the man that made him as
attractive to the many as he was admirable as a leader among his
partisans. He won distinction for his uniform courtesy to men and
deference to women. He had the same power to win men to him that
Napoleon had in making himself the idol of his soldiers. Simple in his
tastes, quiet in his manner, firm in his stand for a principle he
believed to be right, he was ever the most courteous of men in public
life. He made few enemies and held all of his friends. His patience was
equal to his physical endurance and he could travel, speak, shake hands
all day and yet sit down in the evening and explain to an associate the
mysteries or intricacies of a tariff schedule or be a charming companion
in a social circle. But in all his sociability there was a purity of
speech and thought that made it impossible for even a thoughtless man of
rough habits to introduce a suggestion of coarseness, profanity or
vulgarity into the conversation.
In all of the trials of his political and official life no moment came
when he was not plainly devoted to his invalid wife. All the world loves
a noble, true lover, and such McKinley was, tender and gallant to his
sweetheart wife, as he ever was before they were married a quarter of a
century ago.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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