THE COMING PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN THE STATES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVII, Issue II, 11 July 1896, Page 35

THE COMING PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN THE STATES.

THE situation in the Republican party in the States, which to-day could secure at an election three-

fourths of the electoral vote, is just this—the Republican masses are overwhelmingly for Major William McKinley, of Ohio, for President; the political bosses and hacks from all parts of the country are opposed to his nomination. The result seems to be inevitable. The people never lose a fight in which they heartily engage, and the people this time are without any doubt for McKinley. Major McKinley might have had the nomination in the Republican Convention of 1888, when General Harrison was made the candidate. But he had gone as a delegate to support the nomination of Senator John Sherman, and he declined to permit the Convention to be stampeded in his favour. Again, in 1892, when Major McKinley was chairman of the convention and a supporter of General Harrison’s renomination, the effort was made to unite the opposition to Harrison on McKinley. Again McKinley declined in so earnest a way that there was no possibility of mistaking his sincerity, and for the second time he had placed a tendered nomination aside.

Now the case is different. He is not only willing to have the nomination, but he is frank and unaffected in his desire for it. Frankness (says an American contemporary) is a characteristic of Major McKinley. His frankness, candour, earnestness, and sincerity of purpose, have always stood by him in his past public life, and he has been famous for his capacity to bring out even more than the full vote of his party ever since he first asked the suffrages of voters. In his modest home in Canton, Major McKinley is

kept extremely busy attending to a correspondence which grows larger every day. Not all of each day, however, can be given up to letters and telegrams, for each train that arrives in Canton brings him adelegation of visitors. An inexperienced person would be flustered by these visitors, but Major McKinley is as much at his ease as possible. He goes through his day’s interviews with ease to himself and with extreme courtesy to his guests.

It is far from my purpose to make any incursion on the privacy of Major McKinley. The business of the campaign has so overgrown the ordinary office-room of the Major’s house in Canton that the whole of it, bedrooms and all, is given up during the day to be the workshops of secretaries, stenographers, and type-writers, and it is doubtful whether a private residence, while still used as such, was ever more completely given over to political business.

In height the Major is about five feet, eight inches. He is alert and graceful in his movements, and appears to be in strong and vigorous health. His face, however, is pale, and he has the appearance of a student who spends more time in library and study than in out-door recreation. With his neighbours in Canton—one of the prettiest small cities in the country, by the way—he is on most cordial terms, and they drop in on him without any formality, sure always of a friendly welcome. The wife of Major McKinley has long been an invalid. Her poor health does not prevent her, however, from taking an interest in everything that concerns her husband. They were married twenty-five years ago, and are living now in the house to which they went as bride and bridegroom. Two

children have been born to them, but

these died years ago

under circumstances of most peculiar sadness. Mr McKinley has never quite recovered the effects of these bereavements, and her invalidism appears to be the continuing results of these nervous shocks. She is about her house, however, every day, attending to her domestic duties with a cheery courage at once admirable and pathetic. William McKinley was born in Niles, Ohio, in 1844, of Scotch-Irish ancestry. His forefathers settled in Pennsylvania, and two of his great-grandfathers were soldiers in the Revolutionary War. His father, who died a few years ago, was born on a farm, but was during all his active life an iron-maker, operating founderies and fur-

naces. When five years old the son went to school and continued there for eleven years, when he was graduated from the academy. He at once secured a place as

teacher of a school in Poland, and retained this until May, 1861, when he enlisted as a private in the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry. McKinley was soon promoted to be sergeant, and was attached first to the head quarters of General Rutherford B. Hayes, and then to that of General George Crook. On account of gallant conduct at Antietam, General Hayes requested that he be given a commission, and this was done. He was promoted first-lieutenant and captain, and in 1865 he was breveted major ‘ for gallant and efficient services.’ In September, 1865, this veteran of more than four years' service was mustered out ; when he returned to civil life he was just six monthspast histwentyfirst birthday. Major McKinley’sexperiences in the field

were in no sense holiday-like, as he participated in much of the toughest fighting of the war, and he was always in the thick of it. In 1867 he was admitted to the Bar, and settled at once in Canton, which has ever since been his home. In 1869 he was elected District-Attorney of Stark County, and served as such two years. Then he returned to his private practice in which he was abundantly successful, proving himself an able advocate, who prepared his cases with great care and always knew them thoroughly.

In 1876 Major McKinley was elected to Congress as a Republican. He was re-elected to all the succeeding Congresses between the Forty-fifth and Fifty first, but in the borty-eighth Congress his election was contested and his opponent seated, late in the session. The next year Major McKinley was elected Governor of Ohio, and two years later he was re-elected. On the second occasion the majority of twenty-one thousand of 1891 was increased to eighty thousand. As Governor te strengthened himself in the esteem of all who had knowledge of what the public questions in Ohio meant.