William Mckinley

The 25th President of the United States, William McKinley, was born in Niles, Ohio on January 29, 1843. He was the seventh out of nine children and his parents’ names were William and Nancy McKinley (Wikipedia). When William was nine, his family moved to Poland, Ohio where he attended and graduated at Poland Seminary. He worked hard on his studies and was influenced greatly by his mom, who stressed morals and taught him important life lessons.

After graduating from Poland Seminary, in 1860 William McKinley attended Allegheny College in Pennsylvania for one term before returning home because of health problems (Miller Center of Public Affairs; University of Virginia). Later in 1861 when the civil war started, McKinley joined as a private into the 23rd regiment in the Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Another future president, Rutherford B. Hayes, was ironically his superior officer and promoted him to commissary sergeant for displaying bravery in battle. He considered Rutherford B. Hayes to be his mentor and maintained a relationship with him continuing past the end of the war. William McKinley eventually emerged from that regiment as Brevet major and captain. Four years later William met and courted Ida Saxton, whom he married in 1871. They had 2 daughters who unfortunately died before the age of five.

Following his several years in the House of Representatives for Ohio and being chair of the house ways and means committee in 1889, McKinley ran for governor of Ohio in the year 1891. McKinley later ran for president in 1896 against William Jennings Bryan and won by 600,000 votes. Being inaugurated in 1897, McKinley followed through with his campaign promise to organize a session of congress particularly for Tariff legislation. The Dingley Tariff Act was brought about by this and gave the President more freedoms when it came to rates on products.

Another one of the important domestic issues William McKinley dealt with during his time as President was bimetallism (Miller Center of Public Affairs; University of Virginia). There were talks with several countries, such as Italy and Russia, about backing the value of monetary systems with silver or gold. When this agreement fell through, the Gold Standard Act was drawn up and signed by President McKinley in 1900. The act made gold the only exchange for U.S. paper money instead of bimetallism- trading gold for silver.

As for matters outside of U.S. borders, President McKinley was faced with the conflicts of the Spanish-American war. McKinley tried unsuccessfully to get Spain to make peace. To make matters worse, the U.S. ship ‘Maine’ was sunk in a Havana harbor on February 15, 1898. Later on December 10, 1898, the Paris Peace Treaty was signed. The treaty gave U.S. ownership of the Philippine Islands, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Spain also gave up their control over Cuba.

The Boxer Rebellion was also among the important issues President McKinley was involved in when it came to International Affairs. There were many countries anchoring for influence over China at the time, this and issues relating to it were addressed with the “Open Door” note (Miller Center of Public Affairs; University of Virginia). The Chinese rebelled by killing Western Missionaries and their own people who had converted to Christianity; this ended up being known as the Boxer Rebellion. Without congress’ approval, William McKinley sent over 2,000 troops to China for the protection of diplomats.

As to the economic instability, William McKinley attempted to make changes in an effort to improve the economy. He was in favor of a tariff system and made a special session of congress soon after being elected to discuss the system. In 1897, as mentioned previously, McKinley got Congress to sign off on the Dingley Tariff Act. The Gold Standard Act was also aimed toward making an improvement in the U.S. economy.

In summary, William McKinley made a good impact on the U.S. even though his time serving as President was short. It’s unfortunate that we didn’t get to see how he could have further made a difference in our country