Men of Wealth (1944) - Ludwig von Mises Institute

MARK HANNA 395
which he could command from the combined forces of business
organizations interested in public privileges of all sorts. He was
the businessman turned politician, with very low standards of public
principles, but standing resolutely by them.
Of these, the most important in Hanna's career was McKinley.
The Major, as he was known, was in 1888 just forty-five years old.
He had already served six terms in Congress, where he had attained
fame as a militant protectionist. When President, he said of Theodore
Roosevelt that "he was always in such a state of mind." This
described a temper precisely the opposite of McKinley's. The
Major never tilted at abuses. Mark Hanna was not more satisfied
with the world as he found it than McKinley, whose name is identified
with no effort in any direction to enlarge or improve the condition
of his fellow men.
He was a type peculiarly useful to stronger men in our boss- and
business-ridden system. The busy, practical purveyors of privilege
and collectors of graft who rule the machines must have wellfavored
men who can be thrust out in front to give a good appearance
to their ranks. McKinley was peculiarly fitted for this role. He
was a pious soul, eminently respectable, handsome, distinguished in
appearance, an able speaker, and greatly admired for his domestic
virtues. He staged himself elaborately and remained always in
character. He was a man who looked learned and yet who possessed
very limited information of history or economics or law. He was
never a student or reader of books though he came to be looked
upon as a model of wisdom. His range of ideas was, like Mark
Hanna's, limited. He took up the philosophy, the mood, the character
of the generation in which he was born and held fast to it.
A kind of legend grew up around the sweetness and patience of
his home life. His wife was an epileptic. As a result she was a whimpering,
querulous creature who spent her life in the contemplation
and nourishment of her own sufferings. McKinley was deeply devoted
to her. He yielded to this complaining and difficult woman a
romantic and chivalrous attention that made Mark Hanna exclaim,
"McKinley is a saint." Hanna, like Joe Cannon and other contem-