Welcome to Blogging the Presidents: A Voting While Intoxicated™ Almost Original Series. We will be taking a serious look at the 43 men who have led our country and hopefully finding a few laughable details.
PART XXIV
In his pre-Presidential days, McKinley, a Republican, developed credentials that a modern day lefty would beam about. He provided pro-bono legal defense of union members arrested in a strike-busting attempt, his major bill in Congress was a massive and vastly unpopular tariff. As the Governor of Ohio he imposed an excise tax on corporations in addition to labor safety and union rights.
McKinley’s administration was a little quiet. They raised taxes (I mean tariffs) as a debt control measure. His main policy was imperialism, it seems. The USS Maine explosion, the Gulf of Tonkin of its day, was drummed up to support a war with Spain. It turns out it was a faulty boiler. But hey, that didn’t stop us:
The naval war in Cuba and the Philippines was a success, the easiest and most profitable war in U.S. history, and after 113 days, Spain agreed to peace terms at the Treaty of Paris in July. Secretary of State John Hay called it a “splendid little war.” The United States gained ownership of Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico, and temporary control over Cuba. McKinley had said, “we need Hawaii just as much as we did California”, and Hawaii was annexed (see above).
Odd how McKinley desires The Philippines as a foothold in Asia and then suddenly he is given a reason to launch a war with an outmatched Spain that would result in getting it. Nope, can’t possibly be a conspiracy there. This main act of his Presidency seems decidedly less liberal.
McKinley also signed the Gold Standard Act, making him Ron Paul’s hero I guess, making gold the exclusive standard for American currency.
McKinley spoke about civil rights very passionately but did not take any great action, unsure of the federal role. So it was under his watch that the Supreme Court endorsed segregation and the Jim Crow laws continued to terrorize blacks in the South. I wonder if Republicans constantly shouted “just words” at him and considered him a traitor to their cause?
McKinley was the third President to be assassinated. In other cases you see a significant drop-off to the Vice President who takes over. Lincoln to Andrew Johnson of course is the most dramatic going from one of the best to one of the worst. Kennedy to LBJ is certainly a drop off in spirit if not policy effectiveness. I’m not sure I’d make claims about moving from Garfield to Arthur. McKinley, however, was replaced by his new VP for the second term, Theodore Roosevelt…you know, the one on Mount Rushmore. Talk about being overshadowed by your understudy.
