The West is attracted by statesmen who are “human,” who impress themselves upon the Folks by their amiability and good-fellowship. Benjamin Harrison was recognized as one of the ablest lawyers of the bar of his day, but he was never a popular hero and his defeat for re-election was attributable in large degree to his lack of those qualities that constitute what I have called “folksiness.” In the campaign of 1888 General Harrison suffered much from the charge that he was an aristocrat, and attention was frequently called to the fact that he was the grandson of a President. Among other cartoons of the period there was one that represented Harrison as a pigmy standing in the shadow of his grandfather’s tall hat. This was probably remembered by an Indiana politician who called at the White House repeatedly without being able to see the President. After several fruitless visits the secretary said to him one day: “The President cannot be seen.” “My God!” exclaimed the enraged office-seeker, “has he grown as small as that?” Probably no President has ever enjoyed greater personal popularity than Mr. McKinley. He would perform an act of kindness with a graciousness that doubled its value and he could refuse a favor without making an enemy. Former Governor Glynn of New York told me not long ago an incident illuminative of the qualities that endeared Mr. McKinley to his devoted followers. Soon after his inauguration a Democratic congressman from an Eastern State delivered in the House a speech filled with the bitterest abuse of the President. A little later this member’s wife, not realizing that a savage attack of this sort would naturally make its author _persona non grata_ at the White House, expressed a wish to take her young children to call on the President. The youngsters were insistent in their demand to make the visit and would not be denied. The offending representative confessed his embarrassment to Mr. Glynn, a Democratic colleague, who said he’d “feel out” the President. Mr. McKinley, declaring at once with the utmost good humor that he would be delighted to receive the lady and her children, named a day and met them with the greatest cordiality. He planted the baby on his desk to play, put them all at ease, and as they left distributed among them a huge bouquet of carnations that he had ordered specially from the conservatory. In this connection I am reminded of a story of Thomas B. Reed, who once asked President Harrison to appoint a certain constituent collector at Portland. The appointment went to another candidate for the office, and when one of Reed’s friends twitted him about his lack of influence he remarked: “There are only two men in the whole State of Maine who hate me: one of them I landed in the penitentiary, and the other one Harrison has appointed collector of the port in my town!” III