enemies charged him with improper
interest in contracts and with instinctive antagonism to British
interests in Chile. After the revolution a mob in Valparaiso showed its
dislike for Americans by attacking sailors on shore leave. Egan's
extreme demands for summary punishment of the rioters were upheld by
Harrison, who prepared the navy for war. Finally the Chilean Government
was forced to make complete apologies.

In the same year an American mob in New Orleans lynched several
Italians, and Blaine repelled with indignation the demand that indemnity
be accorded before trial and conviction. He could not even promise trial
because of the helplessness of the United States in local criminal
proceedings. The Italian Minister, Baron Fava, was withdrawn from
Washington on this account, and returned only when Congress had healed
the breach by making provision for the families of the sufferers.

The internal relations of the Administration were not happier than the
external. Harrison chafed under the influence of Blaine, and alienated
so many of the regular Republican leaders that it became doubtful
whether he could secure his own renomination. Both Quay and Platt had
been offended, and the former had resigned his chairmanship of the
National Committee after the failure of a political bank in
Philadelphia. No one was anxious to manage the President's campaign, and
he showed little skill in managing it himself. The future was still in
doubt when, on June 4, 1892, three days before the meeting of the
convention at Minneapolis, Blaine resigned his position without a word
of explanation. Whether he was only sick and unhappy, or whether he
desired the nomination, was uncertain.

The strength of Blaine and the rising influence of William McKinley were
apparent in the Republican Convention. Harrison was renominated on the
first ballot, but Blaine and McKinley received more than one hundred and
eighty votes apiece. The former had reached the end of his career, and
died the next winter. The latter was now Governor of Ohio. McKinley had
lost his seat in the election of 1890, but had been raised to the
governorship in the next year. He was chairman of the convention that
renominated Harrison, reaffirmed the "American doctrine of protection,"
and evaded the issue of free silver.

The Democratic party had bred no national leader but Grover Cleveland
since the Civil War, and he had earned the dislike of the organization
before his defeat i