WM
This is a good read on a great President, cut short, but then overshadowed by TR. You'll be amazed at what comes out of his Presidency. We tend to favor war Presidents in history, but there is so much more!!!
not flawless but interesting
This love letter to McKinley is not a particularly detailed personal biography; for example, it completely omits all details of his assassination. Rather, it seeks to rehabilitate McKinley the politician- to show his ability and his political instincts. McKinley was kind of an American equivalent of a British "one Nation Tory", seeking to reconcile the competing forces of capital and labor.
Phillips is best at discussing the 1896 realignment. Before 1896, the Republican and Democratic parties competed on an almost equal footing; although most Presidents were Republicans, elections were razor-tight, and Republicans typically lost control of Congress in midterm elections. Republican dominance of the rural North and West was balanced closely against Democratic dominance of big cities.
But McKinley's substantial 1896 victory was the first of four substantial Republican victories in a row. Democratic nominee Williams Jennings Bryan, a populist, evangelical Protestant, won the WASP-heavy southern and western states that form today's Republican base; by my count, 16 out of 22 Bryan states voted for McCain this year. By contrast, McKinley was the candidate of multicultural America, clobbering Bryan in immigrant-heavy areas and in the urban, industrial Northeast. For example, in the previous election (1892) the Republican nominee got 51% in Massachusetts. McKinley turned that narrow edge into a 69% landslide. Phillips elaborates on this shift by addressing county-by-county detail (though not as much detail as I would have liked; I would have preferred lots and lots of charts!) However, Phillips doesn't (and maybe can't) answer one key question: was this realignment the result of McKinley's strength or of Bryan's weaknesses?
Phillips also discusses McKinley's economic views. He seeks to show that McKinley was basically a moderate progressive, favoring corporate capitalism but also favoring generous treatment of labor, a moderately expansive monetary supply, and gradual reduction of protective tariffs (then an issue dividing pro-tariff Republicans from anti-tariff Democrats). However, a better analysis would have shown in more detail where McKinley disagreed with more conservative Republicans.
I liked Phillips' discussion of the 1896 depression. The basic problem was this: the U.S. was laboring under the gold standard, which (because gold was scarce) caused a tightening of the money supply and thus the depression. Bryan sought to inflate the money supply by using silver coins as well as gold. But this proved unnecessary after McKinley's election, when new overseas discoveries of gold made gold cheaper and thus allowed the money supply to rise by 80 perecent without any major policy changes. This fact suggests (contrary to Phillips's analysis) that McKinley was more lucky than good.
Phillips also discusses foreign affairs, pointing out that the Spanish-American war was the beginning of America's rise as an overseas power- but it may still be too early to tell whether this is a good thing.
Too much politics, too little McKinley
I have read 18 of the books in this series, and this one is by far the least satisfying. Most of the other volumes maintain a balance between the personal life of the president, and his administration and policies. Phillips leans so heavily in the latter direction that I hardly felt I knew anything about the man himself. And can you imagine a book about an assassinated president that contains NO ACCOUNT of the actual crime, and not even a mention of the assassin? Phillips was too busy trying to raise McKinley's sagging reputation (especially in relation to his successor, TR) to give us more details about his life, family, and untimely death. I learned a lot about tariffs, the gold standard, and our relationship with Britain, but not much about McKinley.
Decent Overview of William McKinley
Kevin Phillips is an odd choice to author a biography on Republican William McKinley but not a surprising selection given that Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. is the general editor of this presidential series. The author is a former Republican who worked in the Nixon administration and, like many Nixonians, grew disillusioned with the party and chose to serve penance as a far-left commentator for NPR and other leftist organizations.
The author pursues a thesis that elevates McKinley to the rank of Near Great presidents as judged by occasional polls of historians (polls championed originally by Schlesinger's father, a progressive professor at Harvard who selected fellow progressives to rank the presidents with the unsurprising result that progressive presidents topped the list, ipso facto).
With his bifurcated background, the author denounces McKinley's "middle class" heritage and views, instead touting a hidden progressivism the author espies in McKinley that coulda, woulda, shoulda emerged had only the president not been assassinated. The entire argument is off-mark not only because the author attempts to rebrand McKinley as a liberal progressive but also because recent polls of historians are no longer skewed completely to progressives and have already elevated McKinley, which is the cause célèbre of this biography (i.e. the two most recent polls both list McKinley at #14 all time, which is the rough position the author champions). The author's passion for developing this thesis is the reason that some reviewers lament that the second half of the book is less a biography and more a disjointed argument that McKinley is really a progressive.
As a youth, the author developed an affinity for McKinley. While a member of the Nixon administration, the author shared many values with McKinley but, once he grew older, the author identified with progressives. In this book the author has attempted to translate his own philosophical journey to McKinley. I was not convinced by the argument but then I believe it is fatuous to hold that a president needs to be progressive to be considered successful.
For those interested in McKinley or Teddy Roosevelt, the book is a decent introduction. The author does a good job painting a portrait of the culture and times that forged McKinley. The writing, especially in the beginning when he explores McKinley's Ohio heritage, Civil War service, and initial foray into politics, is well-crafted. Also, the author does an excellent job explaining why the Republicans pursued tariff protections so vigorously during this time period - a position at odds with the party today but understandable given the context of an emerging industrial nation.
Bottom-line: I recommend the book for a quick read given the caveats detailed above but note that the second half of the book is more of a dive into the psyche of the author than an overview of the president.
McKinley as an underappreciated president
This is yet another entry into The American Presidents series of brief biographies, under the general editorship of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. One of the more intriguing facets of this series is the sometime use of eminent authors. Here, Kevin Phillips, a political commentator who once projected a Republican majority, writes an interesting work on McKinley, to some extent a political essay as much as a biography. His contention is that McKinley was one of the few really top notch presidents from Lincoln's assassination to FDR's service.
The book argues that McKinley's rise in politics--from the Ohio state political world to president--was largely self-orchestrated. That he took control over his political ambitions (and was not a mere puppet of Mark Hanna, his key political operative later in his political career).
Earlier in the book, his family background is described as is his solid service in the Union Army during the Civil War (indeed, he served with Rutherford Hayes, another American president--and another Ohioan).
As his political career developed, Phillips argues that his political views were more "enlightened," for want of a better term, than many of his Republican peers. He had some sympathy and provided some support for workers; he seemed to have recognized the value of blacks and women having political rights; he exhibited a much more nuanced view of tariffs than standard pro-capitalist Republicans.
When he became president there was one new aspect to his administration--no owing political bosses Cabinet positions and so on; some predecessors were hamstrung by deals made with party leaders in order to gain the office. His defeat of Bryan in the critical 1896 election helped realign politics. Phillips argues that there was another realignment--of America's international role after 1896, presided over by McKinley.
All in all, an interesting take on McKinley as a person and as president. I think that Phillips does make a case that McKinley, while not a great president, might well be ranked as near great. One can be critical of McKinley's imperialism, illustrated by the Philippines and Hawaii. But he laid the groundwork for Teddy Roosevelt's presidency (indeed, Phillips says that Roosevelt's presidency needs to be coupled with McKinley's for something like a McKinley-Roosevelt extended administration from 1897-1909). At any rate, a useful short biography of William McKinley. A strong addition to the series.
(18 reviews)
