McKinley, William, 1927, Biographical Sketch

THE MILDEST and kindest of men, quarreling with no one, it is a tragic irony that the first term of William McKinley's administration (1897-1901) should have been one of martial strife— the Spanish-American War— and that he should have fallen victim to an assassin's bullet early in his second term. The kindliness of his nature is in no way better illustrated than in his concern for the misguided anarchist after the shooting. The son of a small Ohio foundryman, to whom he had often carried a dinner pail, McKinley was the country's chief apostle of the protection of small industries by the tariff. His interest in the money issue was slight, but Bryan, with his "six-teen-to-one" campaign forced the recognition of this question upon him. Immediately after his election, it was forgotten, however, in the sinking of the Maine, and the insistence of the public for retaliation. McKinley waited two months before yielding. The war itself lasted only three and a half months. McKinley was the third of the country's Chief Executives to be assassinated.1. Brief Biographies of our Presidents and the First Ladies of the Land, 1927, American Weekly, Inc., page 25.