Major," he said, "what shall we say?" Mr. Frease was a young man, just beginning his career as an editor, and a man in whom McKinley had taken the deepest interest.

"Come with me," said McKinley, and he passed into a little back room of the block, which had been used for years as a sort of storeroom. Books, papers, piles of Congressional reports and speeches, packages of Congressional seeds, lay all about, covered with dust. The place was lighted only by a small skylight overhead, on which the dust had settled and long remained undisturbed. McKinley picked up a dusty old Congressional report of some kind, and turning to the blank leaf began to write rapidly, resting his foot upon a pile of rubbish and the book upon his knee, while the Democratic crowd could be heard yelling and cheering outside.

"Shall I get a lamp ?" said Frease. McKinley shook his head, and in a few minutes handed the written page to Frease, and this is what he had written:

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF.

"Protection was never stronger than it is at this hour. And it will grow in strength and in the hearts of the people. It has won in every contest before the people, from the beginning of the government.

"It is a significant historical fact that whenever there has been a well-defined battle in this country between protection and revenue tariff, protection has triumphed. It will albe so, so long as we have a free ballot.

ways

"The elections this year were determined upon a false issue. A conspiracy between importers, many of whom were not even citizens of the United States, and the free traders of this country, to raise prices, and charge it upon

the McKinley bill, was successful. But conspiracies are short lived, and soon expire. This one has already been laid bare, and the infamy of it will still further appear. Merchants are already advertising, now that the election is over, to sell at even lower prices than before the passage of the McKinley bill. The trick has won this time. The conspiracy has triumphed. But the people who have been duped will not forget. Nor will the friends of protection lower their flag or raise the British flag. The result this year is but history repeating itself. Every great measure for the benefit of the people and the country, passed immediately before an election, has been temporarily disastrous to the party responsible for it.

"The proclamation of emancipation, the XIV and XV amendments to the Constitution, measures of incalculable value to mankind, measures of justice and right, giant steps for humanity, were followed by disaster for the time, to the party in power. So with every great measure which time alone can vindicate. Passion and prejudice, ignorance and willful misrepresentation are masterful for the hour against any great public law. But the law vindicates itself, and a duped and deceived public reverse their decree, made in the passion of the hour.

Increased

"So will it be with the tariff law of 1890. prosperity, which is sure to come, will outrun the maligner and villifier. Reason will be enthroned, and none will suffer so much as those who have participated in misguiding a trusting people. Keep up your courage. Strengthen your organizations and be ready for the great battle in Ohio in 1891, and the still greater one in 1892. will triumph in the end. Their enemies, whether here or

Home and country

abroad, will never be placed in permanent control of the government of Washington, of Lincoln, and of Grant."

That was a notable exhibition, and not the only one in his career, of his sublime faith in the righteousness of protection as a principle and in its eventual triumph over all adversities. While other men were wavering, McKinley wavered not for a moment. He had said in closing his debate on the tariff bill that protection was a conviction with him, not a theory; and with the blood of the Covenanters running in his veins, he was not likely to be shaken, even by an upheaval that affected those about him. This is the first time he ever spoke of the tariff act of 1890 as the McKinley Bill. In defeat he was willing to take all the responsibility for it. He had faith that the time would come when others would gladly share it. And it did.

CHAPTER XXI.

ELECTED GOVERNOR IN 1891- MCKINLEY COULD NOT BE DOWNED.

McKinley Returns to Washington - His Defeat Really a Victory -Regarded as a Hero rather than a Victim - Keeping up the

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Cry about " McKinley Prices - His Reply to President Cleveland Concerning Cheapness - The Tariff Reformer Uncovered - Campaign Prices Convicted as Campaign Lies Republican Sentiment Turns to William McKinley as a Candidate for Governor - Demand for an Open Air Nomination by Acclamation - A Notable Convention - Foraker's Speech McKinley's Speech in Accepting - The Campaign Opened Reviews the Parade from the Porch of the House in which He was Born Discussing the Financial Issues - The Success of the McKinley Bill - Prosperity of the Country-McKinley's Majority over 20,000- The Jollification at Canton.

S

OON after his defeat for Congress McKinley returned to his duties at Washington, the second session of the Fifty-first Congress convening in December.

His

defeat made no change in his manners or in his habits of work. Really, his defeat was a victory, and in the eyes, even of his political enemies, he was more of a civic hero than a victim. Many invitations came to him to speak at meetings, political or otherwise. On December 22, 1890, he delivered an address on New England and the Future, at the New England dinner at the Continental Hotel, Philadelphia. With some New England blood in his own veins he could (239)

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readily enter into the New England spirit. "New England character, and New England civilization," he said, course through every vein and artery of the republic, and if the New Englanders are not everywhere found, their light illumines the pathway of our progress, and their aims and ideas permeate and strengthen our whole political structure."

Meanwhile, the Democrats everywhere were jubilant over the recent turn of the tide in their favor; more than all at the "crushing defeat," as they termed it, of McKinley. Gratified with the first success of their loud clamor concerning "McKinley prices," they kept it up by all available devices. Cleveland made an anti-McKinley tariff speech in Columbus that winter, and at the Lincoln banquet of the Ohio Republican League, at Toledo, February 12, 1891, McKinley made a reply which deserves to live, as it will, as a convincing vindication of the patriotic American economic policy. Assigned to respond to the inspiring sentiment, American Citizenship, Cleveland had made "cheapness" the theme of his discourse, had counted it among the highest aspirations of American life, and among other things he said:

"When the laboring men are borne down with burdens greater than they can bear and are made the objects of scorn by hard task-masters, we will not leave their side."

"Can any man," said McKinley, "familiar with the history of his own country, believe that such an utterance was made in soberness and good faith by a leader of the Democratic party- a party which has imposed the only involuntary tasks and burdens ever borne by American. citizens; which for nearly three-quarters of a century kept