nterest of the manufacturers in
the tariff and to capitalize it for political purposes. For several
years he had collected money in Ohio for campaign funds, assessing the
manufacturers according to their interests and impressing upon them the
duty of paying on demand. It had been a business transaction. Hanna had
no extraordinary stake in the result, but combined a genuine interest in
politics with business standards of the prevailing type. About 1890 he
became a friend of the Ohio protectionist and worked steadily thereafter
for his election to the Presidency.

McKinley was a tactful and successful Congressman. He believed in the
tariff, spoke convincingly in its favor, had few enemies and many warm
friends, and was widely advertised by the Tariff Bill of 1890. In public
places after 1893 he was repeatedly hailed as the next candidate, but as
the silver issue rose it appeared that there might be great difficulty
in adapting his record to the new problem. He had favored bimetallism
and free coinage in so many debates that the East, where lay the
strongholds of the party, distrusted his soundness on the currency
question. Yet if he abandoned free silver it was doubtful if he could
hold the West. For months his friends, steered by Hanna, who spent his
own money freely, endeavored to keep the tariff in the foreground, while
the candidate preserved a discreet and exasperating silence upon the
dominant issue of free silver.

The most important rivals of McKinley for the nomination were Harrison
and Reed, but neither of these possessed a manager as shrewd and
resourceful as Hanna. McKinley was nominated on the first ballot at St.
Louis, with Garrett P. Hobart, of New Jersey, a corporation lawyer who
believed in the gold standard, as his associate.

The nature of the Republican platform had been in debate throughout the
spring of 1896. The organization was reluctant to take up the silver
issue and the predetermined candidate was uncertain upon it. In the
Platform Committee there was a contest involving the opportunists, who
wanted to continue the policy of evasion; the Westerners, who felt that
silver meant more to them than the party; and the representatives of the
populous commercial East, who were devoted to the gold standard.
Bimetallists had progressed in their education until most of them saw
that bimetallism must be international if it could be at all. Various
committeemen later assumed the credit for the plank that w