William McKinley
The President and the Assassin: McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century by Scott Miller
Tier 2
This book shares many similarities to Candice Millard’s book on James A. Garfield (Destiny of the Republic). Both discuss a president in sweeping but informative terms while also focusing on the events and characters that led to their respective assassinations. They are entertaining reads that describe a time and place in our nation’s history that seems to have been lost to time. I would highly recommend both and suggest reading them back-to-back if you wanted to bridge the gap between Ulysses S. Grant and McKinley’s successor, Theodore Roosevelt.
This book does not get a higher rating because it is not a comprehensive biography of McKinley, whom I found to be a fascinating and important president. That is not the fault of the book. Miller did not set out to write a detailed biography of McKinley, and he succeeded at writing the book he wanted, which deals extensively with Leon Czolgosz (his assassin) and the anarchist movement at large.
But this series of reviews is not about Czolgosz or Emma Goldman (the woman whom he pinned to impress by killing McKinley). It’s about presidents, and it's McKinley’s time in the spotlight.
William McKinley was the last president who served in the Civil War. This may seem like an inconsequential fact about the man, but I find it to be quite significant. The Civil War was (and still is) the defining moment in US history. The nation tore itself apart and nearly destroyed itself in the process. The events preceding and following that war are impossible to see except through its prism. It does not die with McKinley, but its influence and importance begin to fade once the White House is no longer occupied by a person who fought in that war.
We place an undo importance on the changing of a century (and round numbers in general). The world does not go through a greater change between 1899 and 1900 than between 1900 and 1901. But it feels different. It’s a moment to look to as the changing of the guard. And McKinley was an appropriate president to straddle those two centuries. He was a veteran of the Civil War and a man who, in some ways, was looking back. But he also saw the future that was coming for the nation and the world. In many ways, he inaugurated what one could argue has been the American Century for better and worse.
If you have read my previous posts, you already know a little bit about McKinley. He was the man who shepherded the McKinley Tariff Act of 1890. This Act raised tariffs on imported goods, which benefited American Manufacturers but drove up prices and upset the population overall. This is a common theme of McKinley’s economic strategy and beliefs. He prioritized American business, a philosophy known as protectionism.
As president, he is primarily known for his foreign policy. The United States was creeping toward becoming a global power since the Civil War. It was acquiring more land and massacring the American Indians who lived on that land while also building up its Navy and imposing its position on the global stage. McKinley solidified that position with Spanish American War and his broader foreign policy.
The Spanish-American war is complicated, and in many ways, it presages so much of the United States foreign policy in the years to come. Cuban rebels had fought for freedom from Spanish colonial rule for decades, only to be met with brutal reprisals. By McKinley’s presidency, the conflicts had broken into an outright war for independence. The American people supported the rebels, as did McKinley, but where the people seemed to favor military intervention on the side of the rebels, McKinley desired a peaceful resolution. Spain made it clear that it would not, under any circumstances, grant Cuba independence. Once riots broke out in Havana, McKinley agreed to send a battleship, the USS Maine, simply to be a presence in the area. Then it blew up.
Now I don’t have the time to get into all the various conspiracy theories surrounding the Maine and the subsequent yellow journalism that spurred the nation to war (Doris Kearns Goodwin’s masterful book The Bully Pulpit is a wonderful book that deals extensively with this time and these issues), needless to say, the United States Congress declared war on Spain.
One interesting point of note with this declaration of war was that it specified that the United States would not annex Cuba. The US was presented as a benevolent force attempting to assist freedom fighters in gaining their independence. This would be a strategy (genuine or otherwise) employed time and time again in American foreign policy.
The US Navy dominated their Spanish counterparts, and the distance from Cuba to Spain made resupply impossible, resulting in a swift American victory. This was a monumental moment in not only the US but world history. The plucky nation, which had only won its independence with the help of France, was now a power to be reckoned with. And the supremacy of the US Navy, at a time when Naval power was seen as the most important gauge of global power, was historic.
It is here that our story takes a rather unfortunate turn. No matter what you may think of the imperialistic ambitions of the United States, it would be hard to argue that helping Cuban rebels win their independence was a bad thing. But the peace treaty was not solely over Cuba, and the United States wound up taking over Puerto Rico and the Philippines, a group of islands halfway around the world that posed no immediate military threat to the United States. The subsequent pacification and treatment of the Philippines were horrific. It is a story that is not told nearly enough, and I won’t try to rush it through here as that would not do it justice. McKinley is not solely responsible for the atrocities committed in the Philippines, but he shares considerable blame.
In short, the Spanish-American War can be seen as a harbinger of things to come. You can choose to see it as a good thing, a moment when the United States helped the people overthrow their oppressive colonial rulers, or you can see it as an early example of American imperialism that led to horrific acts of violence against a native population. In truth, it is both. It represents the duality of the United States and the nation’s presence in the world. A beacon of hope or oppression, depending on whom you ask. The only thing that remains uncontested is that this was the moment the United States solidified itself on the global stage. The great powers of the world could no longer ignore it, and that is a primary legacy of William McKinley.
When assassinated, McKinley was seen as a near-pantheon-level president and a larger-than-life figure some suggested should run for a third term. It is one of the great ironies of history that he would be so overshadowed by his Vice President, a man primarily selected for the role because the Vice Presidency was seen as a place to ensure he had no real power, Theodore Roosevelt. But that’s next week.