interesting facts   
 The United States acquired the first oversees possesion under Wiliiam McKinley. 

quotation 
William McKinley Front-Porch Speech, 1896 (0:33) (AU) (WAV)

inaugural address
First Inaugural Address / Second Inaugural Address

biography 
 Born in January 29, 1843, William McKinley was seventh of nine children. His parents, William and Nancy (Allison) McKinley was of Scottish ancestry. His mother was a strong leader in the village and was also active Methodist Episcopal church. When William was nine, in 1852, the family decided to move to Poland, Ohio in hopes of better schooling.  

William McKinley, as a youth became president of the Everett Literary and Debating Society. He showed great skills in oratory. When he was seventeen, William McKinley went to Allegheny College located in Meedville, Pa. He returned home due to his illness and he could not continue college any longer. That same year, 1861, as the Civil War broke out, William McKinley enlisted in June in the 23rd Ohio Voluneers. He was soon brought into battle, in charge of food supplies of his brigade. Rutherford B. Hayes (later president), his commanding officer later spoke of him: "From his hands every man in the regiment was served with hot coffee and warm meats, a thing that had never occurred under similar circumstances in any other army in the world. He passed under fire and delivered, with his own hands, these things, so essential for the men for whom he was laboring." McKinley soon acquired the rank of Major.  

For two years after the war, McKinley began to study law. He soon became politically well-known. In 1869, McKinley was elected as a Republican prosecuting attorney - in a Democratic county. McKinley was a strong believer of giving the vote to black men and he was very oratory about it.  

Soon, in 1871, McKinley met and married Ida Saxton. They soon had a daughter, Katie who was born on Christmas Day of the same year as their marriage. Soon, they were blessed with another child, Ida who was born on April 1, 1873. However, the family was plaugued with misfortunes. The baby Ida soon died, at the age of only five months. Mrs. McKinley was devasted and suffered for the rest of her life.  

In 1876, William McKinley, at the age of 33 became a United States House of Representatives which be held for 14 years, except in the election of 1882. McKinley was a strong believer of a high tariff, and he was involved with the McKinley Tariff Act. It was devised to protect all American manufacturers but the tariff was very unpopular. In 1892 (to 1896) McKinley became governor of Ohio.  

The election of 1896 was fought on an issue other than the tariff. The Republicans believed in a money system based on the single gold standard. The Democrats believed in bimetallism; that is, a money system based on both silver and gold and unlimited coinage of silver.  

Bryan, the great orator for free silver, had the support of people in sections that were poor because of the panic or depressed because of debt. Farmers and Western mining interests were behind him. Behind McKinley were the bankers and manufacturers. The Republicans said that the Democrats and the Populist party, which had joined forces with the Democrats, wanted to repudiate their debts. The Democrats answered that the Republicans had become a party of wealth and privileges for special interests.  

The campaign was unusual. While Bryan toured the country delivering his famous "cross of gold" speech, McKinley waged a "front porch" campaign from his home in Canton .  

McKinley won the election by an electoral college vote of 271 to Bryan's 176 votes. The popular vote for McKinley was more than 7 million out of about 14 million votes cast.  

The Republicans won control of both houses of Congress. Thus during the next four years McKinley was able to fulfill party pledges as to both sound money and the protective tariff. More than this, the party that elected McKinley was strengthened by victory, and the party of Bryan was weakened by defeat and internal quarrels. For 14 years after 1897 there was unbroken Republican control of the presidency, Senate, and House of Representatives.  

In the friendly atmosphere of the McKinley Administration, industrial combinations developed at an unprecedented pace. Newspapers caricatured McKinley as a little boy led around by "Nursie" Hanna, the representative of the trusts. However, McKinley was not dominated by Hanna; he condemned the trusts as "dangerous conspiracies against the public good."  

Not prosperity, but foreign policy, dominated McKinley's Administration. Reporting the stalemate between Spanish forces and revolutionaries in Cuba, newspapers screamed that a quarter of the population was dead and the rest suffering acutely. Public indignation brought pressure upon the President for war. Unable to restrain Congress or the American people, McKinley delivered his message of neutral intervention in April 1898. Congress thereupon voted three resolutions tantamount to a declaration of war for the liberation and independence of Cuba.  

In the 100-day war, the United States destroyed the Spanish fleet outside Santiago harbor in Cuba, seized Manila in the Philippines, and occupied Puerto Rico.  

"Uncle Joe" Cannon, later Speaker of the House, once said that McKinley kept his ear so close to the ground that it was full of grasshoppers. When McKinley was undecided what to do about Spanish possessions other than Cuba, he toured the country and detected an imperialist sentiment. Thus the United States annexed the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico.  

In 1900, McKinley again campaigned against Bryan. While Bryan inveighed against imperialism, McKinley quietly stood for "the full dinner pail."  

His second term, which had begun auspiciously, came to a tragic end in September 1901. He was standing in a receiving line at the Buffalo Pan-American Exposition when a deranged anarchist shot him twice. He died eight days later.