public career, are well apt to stagger the assurance of anyone that had formed a low estimate of that gentleman's character or abilities. I frankly confess that more than once I have felt myself compelled by his “successes” coolly and carefully to reëxamine my own opinions concerning him, in order to discover whether I had not permitted myself to be carried away by hasty and superficial impressions in drawing my conclusions, and whether his admirers were not after all right. But in doing so I always ran against certain indisputable facts and certain personal experiences which irresistibly brought me back to my original judgment.
Before Mr. McKinley's election to the Presidency I had with him only a “speaking acquaintance.” Our meetings were few and unimportant, leaving the impression that he was a man of kindly disposition, good-nature and agreeable manners. But his public career could hardly fail to cause serious misgivings. I do not mean his attitude as an extreme protectionist. That might have been a matter of sincere conviction—although he frequently, in his utterances, showed that, even from the protectionist's point of view, he did not understand his case. But it was mainly his treatment of the silver question which drove the impartial observer to the conclusion that Mr. McKinley had no true convictions of his own, but advocated this and that, not because he believed that it was right but that it was popular with his constituents and advantageous to his party. Even in the National campaign of 1896 which, in spite of his own wishes, turned entirely upon the money question, it was smilingly remarked among Mr. McKinley's near friends, that, as to his personal feelings, he “was in favor of as much sound money as he thought a majority of the voters would stand.” It is well known how nervous he was, in that campaign, about the word “gold.” It was considered an event of importance
