Louis in the middle of June, 1896, the monetary
issue had already dwarfed all other political ques-
tions. It was indeed the rock on which the party
might have crashed in utter shipwreck but for the
precautions of one man who had charted the angry
waters and the dangerous shoals and who now had
a firm grasp on the helm. Marcus A. Hanna, or
“Uncle Mark,” was the genial owner of more mines,
oil wells, street railways, aldermen, and legislators
than any other man in Ohio. Hanna was an al-
most perfect example of what the Populists de-
nounced as the capitalist in politics. Cynically
declaring that “‘no man in public life owes the pub-
lic anything,’’ he had gone his unscrupulous way,
getting control of the political machine of Cleve-
land, acquiring influence in the state legislature,


and now even assuming dictatorship over the
172


THE BATTLE OF THE STANDARDS 173


national Republican party. Because he had found
that political power was helpful in the prosecution
of his vast business enterprises, he went forth to
accumulate political power, just as frankly as he
would have gone to buy the machinery for pump-
ing oil from one of his wells. Hanna was a stanch
friend of the gold standard, but he was too clever to
_ alienate the sympathies of the Republican silverites
by supporting the nomination of a man known to
be an uncompromising advocate of gold. He chose
a safer candidate, a man whose character he sin-
cerely admired and whose opinions he might re-
sonably expect to sway — his personal friend, Ma:
jor William McKinley. This was a clever choice:
McKinley was known to the public largely as the
author of the McKinley tariff bill; his protec-
tionism pleased the East; and what was known
of his attitude on the currency question did not
offend the West. In Congress he had voted for
the Bland-Allison bill and had advocated the freer
use of silver. McKinley was, indeed, an ideally
“safe”? candidate, an upright, affable gentleman
whose aquiline features conferred on him the sem-
blance of commanding power and masked the es-
sential weakness and indecision which would make
him, from Mark Hanna’s point of view, a desirable


174 THE AGRARIAN CRUSADE


President. McKinley would always swim with
the tide.
