The two most powerful Republican Party bosses were of the same mind on the presidential race. Their states—New York and Pennsylvania—had the convention’s largest delegations and were the largest sources of Republican campaign contributions. They believed they controlled the RNC and had a coast-to-coast network of similarly minded party leaders that the press took to calling the Combine.
The Combine’s strategy for 1896 had worked many times before: put as many favorite sons into the field as possible to keep the situation fluid and their options open. A candidate like Reed would be acceptable—he was New England’s favorite son—but better that New York and Pennsylvania (and states they influenced, such as Connecticut and New Jersey, and party leaders throughout the South) withhold support until the eventual nominee felt indebted and therefore more compliant on cabinet posts and patronage.
The more heavy-handed of the two, Thomas Collier Platt, was then sixty-two years old. Tall, slim, slightly stooped, with thinning hair, sad eyes, and a close-cropped gray mustache and beard, Platt had risen rapidly in U.S. senator Roscoe Conkling’s “Stalwart” machine after the war. He was elected to the Senate in 1881, only to resign in tandem with Conkling a few months later to protest Garfield’s appointment of a nonmachine man as New York port collector. The two senators thought they would immediately be reelected in a rebuke to Garfield that would force him to put their ally in this important patronage post. But neither man was returned. Conkling’s career ended and Platt went into exile until he resumed his climb to domination of the Empire State GOP in 1887. By 1895, he was called “the Easy Boss” for his soft manner, but because of his long exile and slow return to power, he had a hard edge and a wariness of possible adversaries.1
Platt’s pragmatic compatriot was Pennsylvania senator Matthew S. Quay, also sixty-two, a small, trim man with bushy eyebrows and a walrus mustache. He had received the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroism at Fredericksburg. He had taken control of the Keystone State GOP away from the state’s senior senator, J. Donald Cameron, then was dethroned when reform elements split from the party in 1882 and the GOP lost control of Pennsylvania. He recovered and was elected U.S. senator in 1887 before brilliantly managing Harrison’s campaign. Unlike Platt, he lacked a nickname and a penchant for grudges.2
The two men’s holds on their states seemed solid, but Quay knew how tentative his position could be, having overthrown Cameron to take control of Pennsylvania and then been thrown out himself temporarily. So when he was challenged again at home, he knew he would have to act fast and audaciously. In spring 1895, Quay’s pick for the GOP’s Philadelphia mayoral nomination had been knifed at the last minute by David S. Martin, a McKinley man and local power broker. Led by Martin, anti-Quay elements then challenged Quay’s position as boss. In response, Quay made a bold move: he would personally contest the reelection of the state GOP chairman, B. F. Gilkeson, who had unwisely joined Quay’s rivals.3
Running for state chairman was dangerous. If Quay lost, he would lose all power, have no role in the 1896 convention, and not be reelected to the Senate. But if Quay won, he would rule Pennsylvania stronger than ever.
Already without federal patronage since a Democrat was in the White House, Quay would not have state patronage to help grease his path. The Republican governor, Daniel H. Hastings, was friendly with Quay, but also with Quay’s adversaries. The Pittsburgh machine and most of the railroad magnates joined Martin’s Philadelphia men in opposing Quay. Steel and coal companies, while grateful for Quay’s past help, were leery of getting involved in an intraparty fight.4
So Quay knitted a coalition of rural Republicans antagonistic to corrupt big-city machines, Civil War veterans eager to support one of their own, and urban reformers who were suspicious of bosses but eager for a leader to oppose corrupt machine practices.5
Tensions were high as the August 1895 state convention loomed. Each side’s careful count showed that Quay had slightly more delegates. Emboldened, Quay insinuated that six new Hastings-appointed appellate judges might be denied the party’s nomination, and confronted one opposition leader with documents alleging he had stolen government monies. Quay threatened to give them to the authorities unless he caved. Quay went to court to compel Gilkeson to cough up the party’s ledgers, which showed he had dipped into its war chest for personal expenses. Quay men swarmed the convention hotels wearing large badges reading, “What Did He Do With It?” After an all-night negotiation, the anti-Quay forces surrendered. Credentials challenges were amicably settled, Hastings’s judges were slated, and Gilkeson withdrew and nominated Quay. Quay now had more power over the Pennsylvania GOP, and his longtime critics—the Republican reform wing—had an unexpected champion.6
By cementing his control of the Pennsylvania GOP, Quay also put himself in a stronger position to influence the 1896 race, in part by damaging two presidential hopefuls as he saved his own political life. Senator Don Cameron had stayed out of the chairman’s fight and now, as a Free Silver man, found himself at odds with the state party’s support of a sound-money plank. Quay had engineered the provision, knowing it would damage Cameron’s presidential ambitions as the Eastern champion of Western silver interests. Benjamin Harrison—believing Quay’s defeat “would be a good thing for the party”—was also hurt. The bad blood between the two men after the 1888 campaign meant the former president would get little Pennsylvania support if he ran.7
Still, the close call revealed anti-Quay sentiment in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia that McKinley and Hanna could exploit for delegates.
THERE WERE TWO POTENTIAL GOP presidential candidates who had independent bases of support, and whom the bosses could not easily manipulate—Harrison and House Speaker Thomas B. Reed. They had the most strength outside their home state and region. Both were in a position to take advantage of McKinley’s Zanesville defeat, but neither actively promoted himself as a possible Republican contender in 1895. Instead, in the timeworn parlance of Gilded Age politics, they put their fate “in the hands of their friends.” The presence of both men as possible candidates helped the Combine as Harrison locked up Indiana and froze allies around the country while Reed was naturally expected to hold all of New England. This freed the Combine to focus its attention on promoting favorite sons in other states.
“Apathetic” would be an understatement of Harrison’s attitude about the 1896 contest. While boosters talked up his chances, Harrison was disinterested. He wrote a former appointee, “I am in sympathy with those who think they are entitled to have a new name.”8
Louis T. Michener, his former political advisor and now a Washington lawyer and lobbyist, peppered Harrison with letters full of political gossip designed to spur his former boss into action, warning against trusting John K. Gowdy, the Indiana GOP chairman, or reporting on efforts to get West Virginia and Indiana to instruct for the former president. Michener addressed his letter to Harrison’s private secretary, E. Frank Tibbott, and clumsily used “H.-” or “Hart” instead of Harrison’s last name to give his former chief plausible deniability if a letter leaked.
Reed, the Combine’s preferred choice, was in a better position than Harrison, in part because he actually wanted to run. After crushing the Democratic filibusters as House Speaker from 1889 to 1891 and ably leading the Republican minority since then, he was also the GOP’s most popular figure. He was set to become Speaker again in late 1895, when the new Congress was seated. “The Democratic mortality will be so great,” Reed had predicted before the 1894 midterms, “that their dead will be buried in trenches and marked ‘unknown.’ ” He was right.9
But, like Harrison, Reed was strangely passive. North Carolina Republicans endorsed him in August 1894, but Reed did not seek any other states’ endorsements in 1895, even as McKinley used his new friendship with Senator Pritchard to keep Tar Heel Republicans from renewing their support of the Speaker.10
Instead, Reed endured the last two months of the lame-duck Democratic Congress that ended March 3, spent the summer at the beach in Maine, and returned to Washington in November to be elected Speaker, only without his famous walrus mustache. After supposedly falling asleep in the House barber’s chair, he awoke to find the barber had waxed his treasured mustache. Shocked, Reed ordered him to shave it off, saying, “You’ve made me look like a darned catfish.”11
Reed was now content to leave his aspirations “in the hands of friends” and wait until the convention neared, but no one “friend” was in command of the Reed campaign. Instead, there were three.
Joseph H. Manley was Republican national secretary, Maine’s committeeman, and Reed’s manager. He was a longtime operative who had helped in each of Blaine’s presidential bids. Though Reed and Blaine were antagonists, Reed welcomed Manley’s help since Manley knew national Republican leaders. But Manley was neither well organized nor steady. He was more of a busybody, as events would show.12
The second chief was the brainy Massachusetts senator Henry Cabot Lodge, who had served with Reed in the House. He canvassed fellow senators and organized the Bay State. Reed later decided Lodge would lead his efforts at the national convention, raising the possibility of friction with Manley, who had worked the RNC and state party leaders for months.
Reed further confused the situation by making Illinois representative James F. Aldrich his official campaign chairman. Aldrich was energetic and personally committed to Reed, but as a sophomore congressman, he was not influential. He didn’t begin work in earnest until 1896 and was then focused on recruiting House members, which left Reed with nothing like McKinley’s systematic outreach or extensive grassroots organization.13
Reed did have the advantage of the polished pen of Theodore Roosevelt, who was having the time of his life as a newly appointed New York City police commissioner. In a sign of his enthusiasm for his appointment in 1895, Teddy had written his sister that he was spending nights “tramping the street, finding out by personal inspection how the police were doing their duty.”14
Still, TR had higher ambitions. After a crushing third-place finish in the 1886 New York mayor’s race and on the outs with Platt, he knew doors were closed to him in the state. The only way to resurrect his political career was to secure an appointment in a Republican administration in Washington. So while the New York City Police Department absorbed most of his energy, Roosevelt wrote articles in influential journals, praising Reed’s leadership in ending the Democratic filibuster and advancing sound-money principles.15
TR took it upon himself to defend Reed on currency because he believed the election would be dominated by the issue and, as he told Lodge, there was a “very widespread feeling among good solid Republicans here that Tom Reed has straddled the financial issue.” He warned Reed must forcefully oppose Free Silver. “He can not keep the Silver fanatics with him, and . . . the sound money men at present feel that he is luke-warm in the matter.”16
Roosevelt had seen this coming, having told Lodge earlier that he regretted “Reed did not make a strong anti–free silver coinage speech” early in 1895. “Had he done so . . . there would not now be the slightest opposition to him in New York.” But Reed had neither the interest nor the campaign leaders who would have sensed and dealt with this weakness.17
The Nation slapped Reed around the day after TR’s warning to Lodge, saying the notion that the former Speaker was safe on currency meant “it must have been some other Reed whom the Populists chased into the cloakrooms in the last Congress” when he flirted with a silver bill to bedevil Cleveland. The magazine warned that “his honest-money friends in the East have in vain besought to pull his Sino-Shaksperian [sic] head out of the sand” on the money issue. McKinley apparently wasn’t the only candidate with problems on currency.18
SINCE REED AND HARRISON had “friends” to manage preparations, the Combine leaders and their agents focused on favorite-son candidates who could lock up their own states and be manipulated. These men were less well known outside their states and had little chance of winning. But they would be indebted to the Combine for its help; lightning might strike, and if it didn’t, they could strengthen their right to patronage and other considerations by delivering their supporters to the convention’s ultimate winner.
The machine men sent each other coded letters to report progress, organized the favorite sons, and requested assistance, especially money, from Platt’s financial backers. Quay suggested they begin in April 1895 by dispatching J. Sloat Fassett, an Elmira, New York, lawyer and newspaper editor, for a nearly three-month tour of the Midwest and West to sample opinions about the race. A Platt lieutenant, Fassett had friends across the country from serving as RNC committee secretary before Manley and as temporary chairman of the 1892 convention. McKinley men had been collecting such information for months.19
Iowa’s U.S. senator William B. Allison was near the top of the Combine’s list of favorite sons. Allison left politics to his longtime handler, Ret Clarkson. Clarkson’s biggest concerns were preparing an Allison campaign biography and ingratiating himself with Platt and Quay. His most important link to the Combine was Grenville M. Dodge, a fabulously wealthy railroad engineer who now lived in New York but had represented Iowa for a term in the House. Dodge was Platt’s paymaster and Republican fund-raiser extraordinaire. Ret also had many friends who owed him: he had been first assistant postmaster general under Harrison, handing out lucrative post office jobs across the country. This was especially important in the South. For his part, Allison was focused on helping Iowa legislative candidates in the 1895 state elections. They would decide if he was reelected senator in January 1896.20
While Dodge and Ret worked Iowa for Allison, Lorimer and Tanner were talking up Illinois’s favorite son, Uncle Shelby Cullom. They had had no difficulty in coaxing him into the race. A fringe player twice before, the senator wanted the nomination “more than he had wanted nearly anything in his career.” This blinded him: Cullom apparently didn’t understand that the alliance between Tanner, his longtime handler, and Lorimer, whose Cook County machine had opposed his reelection in 1895, was for mutual benefit, not out of loyalty to the senator. He was their tool. Cullom and the machine men thought their cooperation made it unlikely anyone would challenge him for Illinois’s convention voters. They were mistaken.21
Platt had his own favorite son ready for New York, Governor Levi P. Morton. He had an impressive resume: congressman, ambassador to France, and Harrison’s vice president. After Harrison’s defeat, he had remained in Washington until the Easy Boss brought him home to best Senator David B. Hill in the 1894 gubernatorial race. But the tall, clean-shaven, round-faced Morton had drawbacks: he was a multimillionaire New York banker and he was seventy-one. If elected, he would be the oldest president in history.
West Virginia senator Stephen B. Elkins also began angling for favorite-son status in 1895. He had served as Harrison’s war secretary and had deep connections throughout the West, where he had made his fortune as a young man. While he managed his coal and rail business interests from New York, he lived in West Virginia and had helped steer the GOP’s rise to power there. He was interested in being vice president and figured offering himself for president would help secure the number-two spot. He purchased the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, southwest Ohio’s most important paper, and whose editorials could cause problems for McKinley at home.22
Elkins made a Western swing in May 1895, accompanied by Richard C. Kerens, his business partner and a McKinley man. The two stopped in New Mexico and Colorado for a mix of business and politics, followed by political events in Montana and Oregon. Elkins made speeches along the way in which he favored the use of silver money, but he avoided endorsing Free Silver. Otherwise, Elkins was content to spend 1895 watching and waiting.23
Minnesota senator Cushman K. Davis became a favorite-son candidate when Minnesota representative James M. Tawney said in spring 1895 that his state would send “a solid delegation” for Davis to the national convention. Davis was a leading Republican voice on foreign affairs but had grabbed headlines by supporting Cleveland’s tough actions against the Pullman strikers in 1894, wiring union officials that “you are rapidly approaching the overt act of levying war against the United States.” Realistically, Davis had no chance, but the Combine hoped he would hold Minnesota’s eighteen delegates against former governor Merriam’s efforts in the state for McKinley.24
There was also talk of Kentucky governor William O. Bradley and Tennessee’s Clay Evans, but just with Morton, Allison, Cullom, Elkins, and Davis in the race as favorite sons, along with Reed and Harrison, the Combine had roughly 304 of the 463 votes needed to nominate. That was even before they influenced neighboring states or reminded Southern brethren of past and future favors.
MORTON WAS THE FIRST of the Combine’s proxy candidates to be tested against McKinley when they both attended the Southern Exposition in Atlanta in September 1895. The men had lunch the afternoon of their joint appearance and visited for an hour before the elderly New York governor went for a nap, while McKinley stood under the trees on the exposition’s grounds and greeted fairgoers.25
They spoke later in the auditorium packed with 25,000 Civil War veterans from the North and South. McKinley and Morton were seated onstage with Confederate lieutenant general James Longstreet, an active Republican, between them. Saying, “Americans never surrendered except to Americans,” the Major called for a “fresh baptism of patriotism,” saying “the best way to get it is by immersion.” McKinley told the crowd, “The war has been over for 31 years. The bitterness and resentment belong to the past and its glories are the common heritage of us all.” He ended by proclaiming, “If we ever fight again, and I pray God that we may never have to . . . we will fight on the same side and we will fight under the same flag.”26
Georgia governor William Y. Atkinson then hosted dinner for Morton and McKinley. Morton refused requests to speak, so the audience then called for McKinley. He gave a short, patriotic talk, saying, “We take no orders from any other nation; we accept no governmental standards but our own, and we acknowledge no flag but the stars and stripes we love.” The Atlanta Constitution took notice, writing, “McKinley, unlike Morton, knows how to arouse the enthusiasm of a crowd. Besides being a broad man he is a great orator, a quality which Governor Morton lacks.”27
The World later stirred up trouble by reporting that McKinley told the New Yorker he “would make a magnificent President” and hoped if he couldn’t win, Morton would be nominated. The Democratic paper alleged McKinley promised if he could not be nominated, Ohio would support Morton, expecting a similar pledge in return. But “Morton, with a little smile, thanked Gov. McKinley for his contingent promise of help but said ‘it was too early to speak.’ ” Georgia’s Reconstruction Republican governor, Rufus Bullock, and Morton’s private secretary supposedly witnessed the exchange during a carriage ride. This did not sound like McKinley. The Major knew that if Morton withdrew, Platt would decide where New York went, not the governor. The newspaper was exaggerating.28
STILL, THE COMBINE WONDERED: was McKinley pliable or another wooly-headed reformer surrounded by amateurs best left to flounder on his own?
In May 1895, former Michigan governor Russell A. Alger was sent by the Combine to visit Hanna. Alger reported to Quay he had posed two inquiries on behalf of “our committee.” The first concerned patronage and cabinet positions. That made Hanna uncomfortable. McKinley’s intention was that he “should stand without a single fetter, before the people, if he receives the nomination.” That kind of talk was mystifying and naïve to the machine men. Alger’s second question concerned collusion with anti-Platt forces in New York. Alger was assured “no pledges, understandings, or encouragements” had been or would be given to Platt’s rivals. That was perhaps untrue: there was an active New York McKinley League, led by Platt’s enemies and encouraged by the Major.29
At the end of May, McKinley attended an unusual dinner at Chauncey M. Depew’s Manhattan mansion. When Depew, Cornelius Vanderbilt’s money manager and Platt’s stalking-horse candidate at the 1892 convention, sent an invitation, it was wise to accept. Twenty-four men enjoyed an excellent meal and then rose for cigars, after-dinner drinks, and conversation until midnight.30
At the table were three presidential hopefuls (McKinley, Harrison, and Morton), one vice presidential aspirant (Elkins), one boss (Platt), several of Platt’s critics, and other officeholders, plutocrats, and politicians. Two city police commissioners were present: Frederick D. Grant, son of the former president, and Theodore Roosevelt. Although Montana senator Thomas Carter’s Free Silver pronouncements upset Harrison, little of substance was said that evening. The host explained he wanted to bring everyone together “to smooth out the political acerbities of the hour.” It also gave Platt an opportunity to see McKinley up close.31
There was also talk of a Combine-McKinley sit-down, though nothing came of it. Quay rebuffed Hanna’s attempts to get him to visit McKinley in Ohio. Instead, Hanna went to New York to confer with the bosses, including Platt, Quay, Manley, and Senator Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island. According to Myron T. Herrick, “Hanna succeeded in convincing them that McKinley was the strongest candidate.” Considering how they acted in the months ahead, that was certainly false.32
Hanna returned to Cleveland, where the McKinleys were staying at his home. Reports of what transpired next vary in detail, but not substance: it was a telling moment that would set the direction and theme of McKinley’s campaign for the GOP nomination.
Herrick and Kohlsaat were present when Hanna reported on his Combine meeting. Herrick recalled that McKinley, Hanna, and others were with him in Hanna’s library on a Sunday morning. Hanna passed around cigars. McKinley listened while Hanna said to him, “Now, Major, it’s all over but the shouting. Quay wants the patronage of Pennsylvania, Aldrich of New England, and Manley of Maine. Platt wants that of New York, but he wants it in writing: you remember he was fooled on Harrison. I think they are willing to leave this region to me.” The last line was jarring. It does not sound like something Hanna would say, especially in McKinley’s presence.33
While Kohlsaat thought the group met in Hanna’s den after Sunday dinner, he had similar recollections. Hanna told McKinley, “ ‘You can get both New York and Pennsylvania, Governor, but there are certain conditions.’ McKinley: ‘What are they?’ Hanna: ‘They want a promise that you will appoint Tom Platt Secretary of the Treasury, and they want it in writing. Platt says he has had an experience with one President (Harrison) born in Ohio, and he wants no more verbal promises.’ ”34
Herrick later wrote that “McKinley’s face grew serious—in fact, hard” and he “remained silent for quite a little while” before finally saying, “Mark, some things come too high. If I were to accept the nomination on those terms, the place would be worth nothing to me and less to the people. If those are the terms, I am out of it.” Hanna responded, “Oh no, not so fast. I mean that in these terms the nomination would be settled immediately, but that does not mean that their terms have got to be accepted. There is a strong sentiment for you all over the country and while it would be hard to lick those fellows if they oppose you, damned hard, I believe we can do it.”35
Again, Kohlsaat’s memories were similar. “McKinley was smoking a cigar. He threw his head back and let the smoke curl up . . . then got up and paced the little room. . . . ‘There are some things in this world that come too high. If I cannot be President without promising to make Tom Platt Secretary of the Treasury, I will never be President.’ Hanna: ‘New York and Pennsylvania will clinch the nomination—with the votes already in sight.’ McKinley: ‘I can’t do it, Mark.’ ‘Well,’ Hanna replied, ‘we have got to work harder to make up that big block of voters, but we will get them!’ ”36
Herrick and Kohlsaat may have exaggerated some of the details, but in the summer of 1895, McKinley decided he would not accommodate the machine men. This was either out of principle—he wanted to become president unbound—or perhaps caution, since he knew the Combine would repudiate him instantly if they found someone more pliant.
Herrick recounted that at the meeting, McKinley asked, “How would this do for a slogan? The Bosses Against the People?” There was some discussion, generally favorable. Ultimately someone reversed the phrases and it became “The People Against the Bosses.” The Major would use the opposition of Platt, Quay, and other machine men to appeal to reform-minded Republicans sick of their party’s Gilded Age excesses. He would run to win the race on his terms.37
BUT FIRST, HE HAD to do all he could to keep Ohio in his column, difficult at any time, trickier when Foraker was involved. Fortunately, McKinley was enormously popular. Bushnell needed his backing to win the governorship and Foraker was counting on a Republican legislative majority in the Senate. McKinley set out to make himself useful to both men, campaigning whenever and wherever they wanted and calculating that Foraker’s loyalty depended on how much he credited the Major for helping the ticket.
He was the headliner when the Ohio GOP kicked off its fall campaign in Springfield on September 10, speaking before a crowd of 30,000 to 40,000 and firing up the Republican faithful with both Bushnell and Foraker watching the crowd’s excited response.
For the rest of the election, except for his Atlanta trip, McKinley was “inconspicuous on the national stage . . . indefatigable at home,” putting his popularity to work for Bushnell directly and Foraker indirectly. He campaigned as if he were on the ballot. In a way, he was. “Huge crowds greeted McKinley everywhere with roaring approval” and GOP concerns about the labor vote faded as miners and mill and factory workers turned out to cheer the “Napoleon of Protection.”38
As the election drew to a close, McKinley appeared at a Cleveland rally that even the hostile Plain Dealer admitted was large and enthusiastic. When McKinley’s name was mentioned, “the crowd broke loose and for four or five minutes it yelled so loud that the band, which began playing ‘America,’ was almost drowned out.”39
In November, the entire Ohio GOP ticket was swept in. Bushnell was elected by 92,622 votes (a bigger margin than McKinley’s 1893 win) and the GOP won a huge legislative majority that guaranteed Foraker his Senate seat.40
On the day in January when the legislature elected Foraker to replace Democratic senator Calvin Brice, McKinley visited Foraker at his hotel. Fire Alarm Joe later recalled that the Major came “to congratulate me . . . and to talk over with me his prospects for the Presidency.” McKinley wanted Foraker to go as an at-large delegate and help his campaign. While Foraker claimed he “hoped and believed” McKinley would be nominated, he feared “a repetition of the charges of treachery and bad faith” he had suffered after previous national conventions. The Major persisted, pledging that Hanna would “have frequent consultations” with him and saying, “I shall be pleased to see and confer with you at any time.” It must have pleased Foraker to know he could have Hanna grovel at his leisure, but it probably mattered more that the Major thought enough of him to raise the issue personally and offer an open door to him. Fire Alarm agreed to be a delegate and help make McKinley the Republican nominee.41
Part of Foraker’s willingness may have come from recognition that he was a freshman senator, 1896 was not likely to be his year, but he was young enough (forty-nine) to have more chances at the White House. Foraker had to have known how much affection Ohio Republicans had for McKinley. All this made it more likely Foraker would keep his pledge to back the Major for the White House.42
On a clear, cold January 13, the largest crowd in Ohio history gathered in Columbus to see one governor leave and another take office. McKinley and Bushnell entered the ceremony arm in arm and were greeted with loud applause. When McKinley stepped forward, it was to “tremendous cheers.” As his last official act, he presented Bushnell with his commission, saying, “No act in my four years’ incumbency has given me more genuine pleasure than this. I know it will not be out of place to say, for it is in my heart to say it, that you have my warm and sincere personal good wishes, both in your public and private life.”43
McKinley and Ida returned to Canton that night. Their old home on North Market had become available and McKinley had quickly bought it. He told Whitelaw Reid’s New-York Tribune that he and Ida were delighted to be back “in the house which twenty five years ago we took up our house keeping as newly married people.” As the McKinleys prepared to celebrate their silver wedding anniversary, his presidential campaign had been under way in earnest for more than a year.44