William Mckinley

 

William McKinley
Madison Norment
 

  William Mckinley was born on January 29, 1843 in Niles, Ohio. He attended Allegheny College for a short time before he became a school teacher.

  In 1861 McKinley listed into the Union Army and later earned the rank of brevet major of volunteers. After the war he came back to Ohio and studied law where he opened up his own practice in Canton, Ohio.

  Mckinley ended up marrying Ida Saxton who was the daughter of a banker. They had two daughters who died young and soon after Ida’s health shot through the floor quickly. She spent the rest of her life as a chronic invalid.

  During 1869 William entered Ohio politics. As a republican he rose through the ranks. He won the election to congress in 1876 and served nearly 14 years in congress as chair House Ways and Means Committee. He became well known as a proponent of economic protectionism which was in the form of high tariffs on imported supplies. In 1890 voters rejected McKinley and the other republicans due to the rising prices. The next year William McKinley ran for governor. After the Panic in 1893 when the U.S. had a bad economic depression McKinley and all fellow republicans regained their political advantage over democrats. So for the presidential nomination in 1896 William won.

  William believed that a special session with the congress for raising customs duties , would reduce other taxes and encourage growth with the domestic industry and employment for American workers. After the destruction of the U.S. battleship Maine in Havana’s harbor on February 1898, the external explosion was presumed to be linked to the Spanish mine. McKinley wanted to intervene in the conflict. On April 25 a formal declaration of war came. The war lasted for early May to mid August. U.S. forces defeated Spain near Santiago harbor in Cube. The Treaty of Paris was signed on December 1998.
 
   In 1900 Mckinley won his second election. Then in 1901 after the second inauguration he embarked on a tour of the western states. The next day McKinley was standing in receiving line at a exposition where the unemployed Detroit mill worker, Leon Czolgosz, shot him twice in the chest at point-blank range.