In the canvass of 1896 Mr. McKinley announced that he would make no electioneering tour. But the people were determined to hear him, and they went to Canton in large delegations and excursions from all parts of the country. From his doorstep he made more than three hundred addresses, speaking thus to three-quarters of a million persons. There was scarcely any repetition, yet every speech was an admirable specimen of argument and oratory. Immediately after his first inauguration he called a special session of Congress to revise the tariff, and the new bill was put through in time to have a fair chance to vindicate itself before new elections occurred. The other notable event in the first year of his administration was the treaty for annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, which he signed in June, but which was not confirmed by the Senate till a year later. In 1898 occurred the most important event in American affairs since the Civil War--the war with Spain. This arose from the intolerable condition of things in Cuba, where the Spanish authorities, endeavoring to suppress the last of many insurrections, had resorted to the most cruel measures, which entailed horrible suffering upon the women and children, and the feeling was intensified by the blowing up of the battleship Maine in the harbor of Havana, February 15, 1898. President McKinley did his utmost to prevent actual war; and when he saw that to be inevitable, he delayed it as long as possible and pushed on the preparations for it with all practicable speed. On April 11th he sent to Congress a message on the subject, and on the 20th he signed a joint resolution declaring that the people of Cuba ought to be free and independent, and demanding that the Government of Spain relinquish its authority over that island. Diplomatic relations were broken off at once, and a state of war was declared. Ten days later an American fleet commanded by Commodore George Dewey entered the harbor of Manila, destroyed a Spanish fleet, and silenced the shore batteries, without losing a vessel or a man. On July 3d another American fleet destroyed another Spanish fleet that had run out of the harbor of Santiago, Cuba, and was trying to escape westward. In this action, again, the Americans lost not a single vessel, and but one man. Two days earlier than this the American land forces that had been approaching the defences of Santiago on the east advanced to the final assault, and after bloody fighting at San Juan Hill and El Caney they were victorious. The invasion and capture of the island of Porto Rico, soon afterward, ended the war in the West Indies. In August the American land forces that had been sent to the Philippines captured the city of Manila and its garrison. Peace soon followed, and by the treaty signed in Paris, December 10th, Spain relinquished her sovereignty over Cuba and ceded to the United States Porto Rico and the Philippines, receiving $20,000,000 as an indemnity for her expenditures in the