Page:Autobiographies and portraits of the President, cabinet, Supreme court, and Fifty-fifth Congress (IA autobiographiesp02neal).pdf/16

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WILLIAM McKINLEY

majority from 3,000 to 300; in 1891 was elected governor of Ohio by a plurality of 21,511, and in 1893 was reëlected by a plurality of 80,995; in 1884 was a delegate at large to the Republican national convention and supported James G. Blaine for President; was a member of the committee on resolutions and read the platform to the convention; in 1888 was also a delegate at large from Ohio, supporting John Sherman, and as chairman of the committee on resolutions again reported the platform; in 1892 was again a delegate at large from Ohio, and supported the renomination of Benjamin Harrison, and served as chairman of the convention. At that convention 182 votes were cast for him for President, although he had persistently refused to have his name considered. On June 18, 1896, he was nominated for President at St. Louis, receiving 661 out of a total of 905 votes. In 1896 William McKinley was elected President of the United States. His administration will go down to history as famous for the maintenance of the gold standard, for the passage of the Dingley tariff bill, for the annexation of Hawaii, for the passage of the resolutions declaring the independence of Cuba, and for the war with Spain which resulted.