We're now on the 24th day of my daily presidents threads celebrating the 250th anniversary of the USA.I know McKinley was the 25th president, but Cleveland fucks up the whole order thing by being president twice out of order, so meh.Today we have William McKinley (1/29/1843 - 9/14/1901), who served as president from 1897 until his assassination in 1901 by a mad anarchist named Leon Czolgosz. Prior to being president he was the governor of and a representative from Ohio. Notable actions or events during his presidency include the Spanish-American War, the Philippine-American War, the Partition of Samoa, the Annexation of the Republic of Hawaii, the Dingley Tariff, the Gold Standard Act, the Great Rapprochement, the Occupation of Cuba, the beginning of the Banana Wars, the Fourth Party System, and the Progressive Era, and the China Relief ExpeditionWhat do you think of the last president to serve in the Civil War?
>>18527220typical Gilded Age nonentity who was a pawn for corporations
>>18527231>killed the Spanish Empire>nonentity
>>18527220The Spanish-American was along with Vietnam one of two wars I wish we hadn't fought.
>The last Civil War veteran to serve as president, McKinley was a kindly man who covered his sickly wife's face with a handkerchief at White House dinners when she had one of her frequent seizures. He could send an angry visitor away smiling and he seemed to never perspire even in hot, humid D.C. summers. Unlike the temperamental Cleveland, McKinley was conciliatory and able to work with party bosses--having spent many years in Congress, he had numerous friends there.>Predictably, McKinley's presidency brought about staunch conservatism to government and he was not inclined to disturb the status quo. The trusts, which had trusted him in 1896, were allowed to gain even more mighty muscles unhindered. By this point the 1890s depression had run its course and an unprecedented economic boom began, even in the farm belt, a region that had been on the verge of armed revolution so recently.
https://youtu.be/U8cIKeRoKh4?si=A3Z8uvOjLtpqALTQ“White House Blues” was written about the McKinley assassination, but the same template was used for decades afterwards with different lyrics, either political or hobo songs, but keeping the “from Buffalo to Washington” refrain.
>>18527256>grab a bunch of worthless jungle rocks full of brown people>have to fight another protracted conflict to gain control of one of them>all because some grifter newspaper editors made fake atrocity stories to stir up a war so they could cover it and sell papers
>>18527231I don't like McKinley, but he was not as conservative as people assume. He was pro labor and wanted to pursue trade reciprocity in his second term. Mark Hanna was going to advise McKinley to break up the Northern Securities Company, so in that respect McKinley would likely have been as progressive as TR had he lived. But he wouldn't have broken up other trusts as aggressively as TR. Had McKinley lived, the GOP establishment would try to block TR's nomination in 1904, but I could see McKinley supporting Roosevelt if TR is a loyal VP. McKinley didn't share the same wariness of Roosevelt that most establishment Republicans had.
I would argue he might be the most boring person to be president. Mild mannered and nice but that’s it for his personality. No real ideology or beliefs. He comes across as relatively spineless for most of his career. And his career is primarily tariffs and the gold standard, literally the Gilded Age stereotypes.If he refused to colonize the Philippines I would have more respect for him but he instead endorsed awful atrocities and came across as extremely ignorant. There’s a reason the press buried the activities that occurred there.The only thing I like about him is that he did care for his wife, even when she had visible health issues that others would have distanced themselves from. He should have just been a family man and not a imperialist stooge.
>>18527498>>18527220It's William McKinley up to bat!
>>18527220He died in Anarchist 9/11. Well, one of the Anarchist 9/11s.
>>18527296Sounds like a jolly good time. To hell with your "serious" wars. I wanna fly a zeppelin over the jungle rocks and take potshots at the Spaniards and/or brown people (redundant) because the yellow newspaper told me to
>>18528077>potshots in a zeppelin
Why was Trump so obsessed with him?
>>18528072>He died in Anarchist 9/11. Well, one of the Anarchist 9/11sAnarchists back then weren’t noodle armed vegans listening to shitty punk bands. A crazy number of politicians, cops and industrialists, along with innocent bystanders, got merked by anarchist pistols and dynamite.
>The McKinley years brought about an economic boom that would last unbroken until 1913, aside from the brief "banker's panic" in 1907. It ended the Third Party System and inaugurated the Fourth Party System that would last until 1932. The Gilded Age and its extremely close elections and high voter turnout gave way to lower turnout and less competitive elections--the Republican Party controlled the White House and had a supermajority in Congress for 17 years following the 1896 election. Gilded Age political issues such as currency and the tariff gave way to debates over regulation of big capital.
>>18528159both imperialists who love tariffs and oligarchs
