President McKinley

by Robert W. Merry

  But that infuriated New York’s antimachine agitators, particularly New York Tribune publisher Whitelaw Reid, whose brilliance and influence were sometimes undermined by his self-importance and tendency to go on at tiresome length in expressing his views. Hearing of Platt’s Bliss ploy, Reid wrote McKinley a ten-page letter imploring him to resist. He quoted the worst things said about McKinley by Platt’s henchmen during the nomination battle—that he was “unsafe and erratic, not firm but impressionable . . . [had] no fixed opinions . . . [was] turned and twisted by every changing wind”—and suggested that, if McKinley succumbed to Platt’s pressure, it would “confirm him in his theory” of the governor’s character. “To yield,” warned the publisher, “. . . is to show that you fear him.”

  McKinley agreed it was dangerous to placate a man such as Platt. Hanna also had advised the governor before he met with a Platt emissary: “They must not dictate.” But the governor didn’t particularly like Reid’s suggestion that a Bliss appointment would demonstrate his own character defects. Besides, he liked Bliss and considered him a pretty good solution to the New York conundrum. Unfortunately it became moot when efforts to sound out Bliss for attorney general or navy secretary yielded a negative response—necessitated, he said, by his wife’s faltering health. The result was that Platt put forth a number of New York favorites, many unacceptable to McKinley, and the New York situation became a festering problem.

  In the meantime the governor busied himself with two of the most prestigious Cabinet positions: Treasury and State. For Treasury he wanted his old House colleague, Nelson Dingley Jr. of Maine, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Dingley had gained national prominence and captured McKinley’s heart with his strong high-tariff advocacy. The governor invited Dingley to Canton on December 3 for lunch and a job offer, but three weeks later the congressman informed the president-elect that serious health problems prohibited his acceptance of such a demanding position.

  As for the State portfolio, even before McKinley could take serious steps toward filling the slot, various newspapers revealed Hanna’s Senate ambitions in articles fueled by anonymous figures described variously as “a close friend of Chairman Hanna” or “a gentleman who is as much in the confidence of McKinley and Hanna as any one.” This clearly was an orchestrated effort to send up trial balloons to assess the reaction from various quarters. As one of these anonymous sources said, referring to Hanna, “He is not ready yet to begin his career in national politics by entering the Cabinet, but prefers rather to enter the Senate.” During a Washington visit, Hanna encountered William Osborne and reiterated his Senate desire. Osborne promptly wrote to McKinley, “Mr. Hanna has his heart set on going to the Senate.” It seems McKinley sanctioned these maneuverings on Hanna’s behalf while avoiding any assurances that he would pursue John Sherman for State.

  Thus in early December, after consultations with McKinley, Hanna traveled to Washington to meet with Sherman. He was authorized to ask, he said, whether the senator would accept the State Department position if offered. Within two weeks Hanna got a reply: “After full reflection,” wrote Sherman, “I have made up my mind to say ‘yes.’ ” The senator asked for a quick decision from McKinley and offered to support Hanna’s senatorial aims upon his resignation. “I feel under deep obligation to you for your assistance from years ago and will avail myself of any opportunity to do you a kindness.”

  In the meantime McKinley pursued his own leading choice for the State portfolio: Iowa’s venerable senator William Allison, known as “the sage old pilot of the Senate.” It was said that the worst epithet ever hurled at the genial, soft-spoken Allison was “the Old Fox,” denoting his ability to outmaneuver the opposition with just the right argument at just the right time. McKinley appreciated his probing intellect and diplomatic skill, not to mention his strong protectionist leanings. But in late December Allison signaled through various friends that he would not take a Cabinet position.

  That cleared the way for more serious consideration of the Hanna-Sherman concept. A big question was what the Foraker machine would do with the Senate vacancy. Ohio governor Asa Bushnell, a Foraker man, never seemed inclined to accommodate the Sherman-McKinley-Hanna wing of the party. As early as November, Hanna outlined the plan to Foraker and solicited his help in urging Bushnell to appoint him. The wily politician remained noncommittal. He later said he did not consider Hanna “very well endowed” for the Senate. He didn’t even credit Hanna for McKinley’s presidential victory, which he suggested was inevitable. It wasn’t clear whether these views were genuine or merely cover for underlying political interests.

  In any event, McKinley undertook the task of assessing rumors that Sherman’s age was eroding his mental acuity. Recalling recent sessions with the senator and getting favorable reports from Sherman friends, he concluded he needn’t worry about the man’s mental capacity. It was a hasty conclusion based on insufficient evidence—and influenced, perhaps, by his underlying desire to satisfy Hanna’s fervent senatorial ambition. Having embraced the idea, though, the governor turned defensive at any suggestion that he had misjudged the matter. He stubbornly wrote to Chicago Tribune editor Joseph Medill, “The stories regarding Senator Sherman’s ‘mental decay’ are without foundation and the cheap inventions of . . . evil-disposed or mistaken people. When I saw him last I was convinced . . . of his perfect health, physically and mentally.” All the same, he determined to name a strong and trusted man as assistant secretary if Sherman should become secretary. He had in mind his Canton friend Judge William Day.

  McKinley offered the job to Sherman on January 4. A day later, Sherman wrote to McKinley, “I have concluded to accept your tender of the portfolio of Secretary of State, and will heartily do all I can to make your administration a success.” He suggested that “Hanna is above all others entitled to friendly consideration” as his successor, and he predicted that Bushnell would react favorably if McKinley made his desires known.

  Hanna didn’t take any chances. He wrote to McKinley on January 13, the day before Sherman’s decision was announced, asking him to write to Bushnell quickly so the governor wouldn’t have time to ponder other options. In the meantime, Sherman wrote to Bushnell urging “serious and favorable consideration” of Hanna and hinting that any party discord over the matter could harm all Ohio Republicans, including Bushnell when he faced reelection later in the year. He also indicated that McKinley “[would] be much gratified by this compliment to Hanna, to whom he largely attributes his great success in the Presidential election.”

  But it wasn’t clear Bushnell would comply. A prominent Republican from Cleveland told reporters on January 14 that he understood “from a good source” that the Foraker forces anticipated a confrontation on the succession question. “Foraker is determined to prevent Hanna from going to the Senate,” he said, “and the fight is going to be a bitter one.” By late January the press was reporting that Bushnell had decided to give the post to Ohio attorney general Asa Jones, a Foraker loyalist. Bushnell told Hanna at a political banquet that he could offer no encouragement and wouldn’t make a decision until Sherman had actually resigned his seat after McKinley’s inauguration. That left Hanna in an agitated state of suspension. But the political pressure on Bushnell—from national Republicans, the Ohio party, and businessmen throughout the country—proved too much for the governor to buck, and on February 21 he announced he would appoint Hanna to the Sherman seat. “So strong was the storm,” reported the Washington Post, “so unanimous was the opinion in favor of Hanna, that the Foraker machine had to bow to the inevitable.”

  In the meantime McKinley occupied himself with the rest of the Cabinet. After Dingley turned down the Treasury Department, Herman Kohlsaat called from Chicago. “I have a Secretary of the Treasury for you,” he said.

  “Who is it?”

  “Lyman J. Gage, president of the First National Bank.” He was born penniless, got his first bank job at fifteen, and now was widely admired throughout the Midwest.<
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  McKinley asked Dawes to interview Gage about his tariff views and political outlook, and the young entrepreneur reported back that, while the banker opposed tariff rates so high that they fostered trusts and monopolies, he embraced the general protectionist principle and acknowledged that the government’s revenue shortfall necessitated higher tariffs. He was a solid gold man. And he was a Republican, though he had voted for Cleveland in 1884 against James G. Blaine, whom he considered unsavory. When word of the Dawes-Gage conversation leaked to the press prematurely, causing embarrassment, Gage deftly issued a statement saying he had not received any Cabinet offer, that he would accept one if offered, and that he would feel “no sense of disappointment or chagrin” if no offer came. McKinley liked the way he handled the matter and invited Gage to Canton in late January to offer him the Treasury job. Gage readily accepted.

  From the beginning of his deliberations, McKinley wanted to give the War Department to his friend Russell Alger, former Michigan governor and 1888 candidate for the GOP presidential nomination. A lawyer and wealthy lumber merchant, Alger also had risen to brevet general during the Civil War. He had been a stalwart McKinley man from the start. But there were two drawbacks. His relations with Sherman had been strained since Sherman accused Alger’s presidential campaign of buying Southern delegates at the 1888 GOP convention, and he was dogged by accusations that he had vacated his command at a crucial juncture during the war. Alger defended his war record and insisted his command absence stemmed merely from his having missed a train.

  Alger moved decisively to patch up his association with Sherman, visiting him for an hour and eliciting Sherman’s statement that “it would be very gratifying to him personally” to have Alger in the Cabinet. Later, when reporters asked about his frictions with Sherman, he brushed it off with the words, “Oh, there is nothing in that. . . . Senator Sherman told Senator Burrows to say to Mr. McKinley that it would gratify him exceedingly to see me in the Cabinet.”

  But for good measure Alger got other friends, including New Hampshire’s Senator William Chandler and Vermont’s Senator Proctor, to endorse his War Department candidacy. As for the Civil War matter, McKinley decided to let it go, despite an inquiry report that concluded, “There is nothing in the files of the War Department which relieves this serious cloud upon an otherwise excellent and brilliant military career.” He considered it too far in the past and too isolated a matter to be disqualifying. On January 29 Alger accepted the post.

  McKinley dangled the Interior Department before Joseph McKenna of California, a federal judge who had served four terms in the U.S. House. A bright and conscientious legislator and jurist, McKenna had impressed McKinley during their days together in Congress, and the governor pushed hard to overcome McKenna’s concern that giving up his lifetime tenure on the bench would erode his meager finances. He sent Melville Stone to San Francisco for two days of cajolery and later got Los Angeles newspaperman Harrison Gray Otis to press further on the matter.

  McKenna finally agreed to visit Canton for a discussion. Over lunch, McKinley said jocularly, “Well, judge, they have been pretty busy with your name lately for a cabinet post.”

  “Yes, governor, but I don’t believe you realize what you are doing.” McKenna felt obliged to reveal that he was a Catholic, which could raise concerns among some about his having jurisdiction over Indian education. But the governor’s plan for McKenna would obviate that concern.

  “The place I want you for, judge,” said McKinley, “has nothing to do with Indian Missions. I want you for Attorney-General.”

  McKenna was stunned. “Oh, I was misinformed,” he said, and accepted on the spot. It was a late change in thinking on the part of McKinley, who had been pressured by Platt to give the Justice Department to John McCook of New York, a prominent corporate lawyer and civic leader. But Hanna disliked McCook, and McKinley decided to offer the New Yorker the Interior Department instead.

  For the Navy position, the president-elect had only one candidate: John D. Long of Massachusetts, a Harvard-trained corporate lawyer with a probing intellect and courtly demeanor. A former governor and congressman, he collected friends and admirers wherever he went. One described him as “probably the most popular man in public life in Massachusetts.” Stoop-shouldered and gentle, he suffered from intermittent emotional strains. But Long avidly embraced the civic challenge.

  For the Agriculture Department, McKinley turned to James “Tama Jim” Wilson (nicknamed for his home county in Iowa), a Scottish-born farmer and agricultural educator who had served in state politics and the U.S. House. Imposing and well-spoken, Wilson was a font of the latest political news and gossip from throughout the West. McKinley also slated a Cabinet position for Maryland’s James Gary, a prominent party official from Baltimore and a successful textile executive, whose name had been put forth by numerous Southern interests. But he held back on naming a specific place for Gary pending a final communication with the man he wanted most, Hanna, still waiting to hear about his Senate prospects. He sent Hanna a poignant letter:

  It has been my dearest wish . . . to have you accept a place in my Cabinet. . . . I have always hoped and so stated to you at every convenient opportunity that you would yet conclude to accept the Postmaster-Generalship. . . . I have reluctantly concluded that I can not induce you to take this or any other Cabinet position. You know how deeply I regret this determination and how highly I appreciate your life-long devotion to me. You have said that if you could not enter the Senate, you would not enter public life at all. No one, I am sure, is more desirous of your success than myself, and . . . I predict for you a most distinguished and satisfactory career in that greatest of parliamentary bodies.

  In light of Hanna’s reluctance, McKinley would tender the postmaster job to Gary. Thus, with only Interior still open, McKinley faced two challenges: what to do about New York and what to do about Roosevelt, who seemed out of control much of the time but whose friends wanted him to become assistant navy secretary. The New York conundrum began with Whitelaw Reid, who had been angling for a major position, preferably the State Department; barring that, navy secretary; barring that, ambassador to Great Britain. But Platt hated Reid, whom he considered a sanctimonious meddler alienated from the real world. While McKinley didn’t feel any particular need to placate Platt, he had no interest in infuriating him. Besides, though he appreciated Reid’s intellect and loyalty, the man talked too much, didn’t know his place, and couldn’t protect a secret.

  The challenge was to bypass Reid without destroying a valuable political friendship. The solution came through a collaboration of intrigue between the governor and Reid’s longtime friend, John Hay, who wanted the Court of St. James for himself and had impressed McKinley increasingly with his tact, loyalty, and judgment, not to mention his generous financial contributions. For weeks Hay had encouraged Reid’s ambitions in letters to the publisher in Phoenix, where he had gone for relief from severe asthma. But when Reid’s prospects narrowed down to nothing, Hay, with McKinley’s consent, got Reid’s father-in-law, Ogden Mills, to travel to Phoenix to break the news. Hay then drafted a letter for McKinley to send to Reid, designed to put the best possible light on the rejection. “I have ceased thinking of Reid,” Hay wrote to McKinley. “He thinks enough about himself for two.”

  The letter emphasized how valuable Reid was to McKinley and how fervently he wished to employ the publisher’s manifold talents. But, alas, he wouldn’t risk jeopardizing the man’s faltering health. “I feel that I must reluctantly forego for the present what would have been a great personal pleasure, in the hope that in the future things shall so come about as to make it possible, without fear of injury to your health, that I shall be able to avail myself in some way of your splendid talent and patriotic self-sacrifice.” Reid responded amicably but couldn’t resist stating that his much-improved health was “certainly better than when I was doing the work that you have distinguished with such praise.” But the matter was settled, and McKinley p
romptly tendered the British ambassadorship to a delighted John Hay.

  Things went awry with McKinley’s effort to get a New York man in the Cabinet when McCook announced that the only job he wanted was attorney general. With inauguration day approaching, McKinley faced the prospect that he wouldn’t be able to assuage Platt, whose New York influence expanded with his recent election to the U.S. Senate. Platt now demanded the appointment of lawyer Stewart Woodford, a former federal prosecutor, who was unacceptable to McKinley.

  But the governor had a reserve plan. He had never accepted Cornelius Bliss’s early rejection of a Cabinet post, and he sent a string of associates, including Hanna, to plead with Bliss. Platt also weighed in. It worked, although Bliss remained sadly ambivalent even after accepting the Interior post. When a friend offered congratulations, he replied, “I need your sympathy more than your congratulations.” But for McKinley it was a signal triumph—and just in time. The Bliss acceptance came a day before the presidential inauguration.

  The final assemblage was this: State, Sherman of Ohio; Treasury, Gage of Illinois; War, Alger of Michigan; Navy, Long of Massachusetts; Agriculture, Wilson of Iowa; Interior, Bliss of New York; attorney general, McKenna of California; postmaster general, Gary of Maryland. It encompassed the geographic balance McKinley wanted, with representatives from New England, the Far West, the Midwest, New York, and the South. (While Maryland wasn’t quite a Southern state, the Gary designation won approval throughout the region.) Further, most of those named not only were well known to the incoming president but were good friends, including Sherman, Alger, Long, Wilson, and McKenna. He managed to satisfy New York reformers without antagonizing the Platt machine. And all the Cabinet members were men of substantial stature in the eyes of the public, though of course their true abilities would become known only through performance in office.