years before by a plurality of over ten thousand, and he was again placed in nomination upon a platform which declared against protection, and expressed a demand for the free coinage of silver. McKinley did not at once open his campaign in person, but spoke in various sections of the country, delivering an admirable Fourth of July address at Woodstock, Conn., in which he said: "The future

will take care of itself if we will do right."

It was on the 22d of August that McKinley made his opening speech in the gubernatorial campaign at Niles, his birthplace, and he made it from the little porch over the doorway to the house in which he was born, forty-eight years before, and there in front of the very windows, through which, as a babe, he had first seen the light of day, he reviewed the parade and addressed a large gathering of the people from the whole country around. In his speech he entered at once into a bold discussion of national and State issues.

"The Democratic platform," said he, "declares for the free and unlimited coinage of the silver of the world, to be coined as freely as gold is now, upon the same terms and under the existing ratio. The platform of the Republican party stands in opposition to anything short of a full and complete dollar. The free and unlimited coinage of silver demanded by the Democratic convention recently held in Cleveland amounts to this, that all the silver in the world, from every quarter of the world, can be brought to the mints of the United States and coined at the expense of the government; that is, that the mints of the United States must receive 412 grains of silver which is now worth but eighty cents the world over, and coin there

for a silver dollar, which, by the fiat of the government, is to be received by the people of the United States, and to circulate among them as worth a full dollar of one hundred cents. It does not take a wise man to see that if

The

a dollar worth only eighty cents intrinsically, coined without limit, is made a legal tender to the amount of its face value, for the payment of all debts, public and private, a legal tender in all business transactions among the people, it will become in time the exclusive circulating medium of the country. Gold, which is 20 per cent. more valuable on every dollar, will not be paid out in any transactions in this country, when an eighty-cent silver dollar will answer the purpose. Nor will the greenback be long in returning to the treasury for redemption in gold. leading nations of the world would be glad to put us upon a silver basis. There is little doubt that Europe only withholds consent to an international ratio on account of her belief that we will inevitably go to silver. If she believed otherwise, she would not be slow to give consent. nations which are on a silver basis alone are the poorest nations of the world, and are in constant financial disturbance and monetary disorder. The danger of free and unlimited coinage has been pointed out over and over again by leading statesmen of both political parties. Governor Campbell declared that while he had his doubts about it he was willing to chance free and unlimited coinage of silver.' I am not willing to chance' it. Under present conditions the country cannot afford to chance it. We cannot gamble with anything so sacred as money, which is the standard and measure of all values. I can imagine nothing which would be more disturbing to our credit, and more

The

deranging to our commercial and financial affairs than to make this the dumping ground of the world's silver. . I am in favor of the double standard, but I am not in favor of a free and unlimited coinage of silver in the United States, until the nations of the world shall join us in guaranteeing to silver a status which their laws now accord to gold.” His discussion of the financial question was as pointed and as clear as were all his discussions on the question of protection, to which he had devoted so much special study. One of his noted addresses in the campaign was at Cincinnati, September 1st, upon the American Workingman. From another speech, which he delivered at about that time, the following truthful representation of the workings of the McKinley tariff is quoted:

“The principle upon which that bill was made permitted everything to come into this country free which we could not make or did not propose to make, except luxuries, and we put the tariff upon the foreign products that compete with the American products, to the end that we might encourage American production and American labor. And there is not a line of that law that is not American, there is not a page of it that is not patriotic, there is not a paragraph that is not dedicated to the American home. Why, they said prices were going up last fall. The campaign prevaricator had a wide range, and he played his part well. The law had been in operation but about three weeks, when the elections of last year took place. But the campaign prevaricator is out of business on that law now. As I said, it has been in operation twelve months. We never had so much domestic trade in any twelve months of our history. We never had as much foreign trade in any twelve months

since the beginning of the federal government as we have had since this bill has become a law. We never bought as much abroad in any twelve months in our history as we bought in the first twelve months of this law, largely because of the new free list, made under protection lines, in this law. We put everything on the free list that we could not produce ourselves. We have sold more abroad in these twelve months than in any twelve months since the administration of George Washington, and when Europe came to settle the balance of trade with us after the first twelve months of operation with us under that law, Europe paid to the United States $99,000,000 in gold, representing the excess of what Europe bought of us over what we bought of Europe."

When the votes were counted election night it was found that McKinley had been elected governor over James E. Campbell by a plurality of over 20,000 votes. At the Republican jollification of the old Eighteenth Congressional District, at Canton, November 14th, just a year after the exciting times at the same place, when McKinley wrote his editorial, beginning "Protection was never stronger than at this hour," McKinley was enthusiastically received, and he was applauded now by some who had jeered at him in his defeat the year before.

The Democrats had found that McKinley was a hard man to kill.

CHAPTER XXII.

CONVENTION, CAMPAIGN, AND DEFEAT OF 1892 - FAITH STILL UNSHAKEN BY ADVERSITY.

McKinley Inaugurated as Governor A Delegate at LargeMcKinley Permanent Chairman of the Convention - Another Embarrassing Situation - Efforts to Use McKinley to Defeat Harrison-Foraker Announces Forty-four Votes for McKinley and Two for Harrison - Another Roll Call with the Same Result McKinley Leaves the Chair and Moves to Make Harrison's Nomination Unanimous - Receives One Hundred and Eighty-two Votes under Protest Campaign of Misrepresentation - McKinley Bill Maligned - People Vote for a Change Republicans Waver - McKinley Exhorts them to be Firm Only a Cross Current - The Republican Party Values its Principles no Less in Defeat than in Victory A Prediction that Speedily Came True.

M

CKINLEY was inaugurated Governor of Ohio on the 11th of January, 1892. In the opening paragraph of his address he said: "I approach the administration of the office with which I have been clothed by the people, deeply sensible of its responsibilities, and resolved to discharge its duties to the best of my ability. It is my desire to co-operate with you in every endeavor to secure a wise, economical, and honorable administration, and, so far as can be done, the improvement and elevation of the public service." It became proper and necessary for the Legislature, being the first after the taking of the new