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 '"Doesn't our President look marvelous today? So round and prosperous!"
William McKinley is mainly known nowadays as the President whose assassination at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York resulted in the much-better-known Theodore Roosevelt coming into office. His assassination receives little attention in public memory compared to that of Abraham Lincoln or John F. Kennedy, despite serving longer than either of them. He is also one of the more famous victims of violence perpetrated in the name of Anarchism; a few short but eventful decades later, the radicals to really be afraid of would be communists instead. He famously disliked having a security detail, seeing them as an impediment to interacting with his constituents, and was specifically warned that the event in which he was shot would be impossible to properly secure. McKinley was unconcerned because he couldn't imagine that anyone would actually want to hurt him.
This debacle led to an informal request from Congress asking the Secret Service—Treasury Department police, until then mostly concerned with fighting counterfeiting but doing other stuff on the side—with providing security for the President and other high-ranking officials. Theodore Roosevelt quickly made this arrangement permanent.
Much like James Garfield before him, technology was right there that probably would have saved him, but several decisions surrounding the operation didn't work out for keeping him alive (the new "x-ray machine" being exhibited at the very expo where he was shot was too untested for doctors to trust it, and apparently they didn't think to do the surgery under the brand-new electric lighting, nor could they use candles because flammable ether was still the best anesthetic available at the time).
Though currently seen as little more than a footnote in presidential history, McKinley was phenomenally popular during his time. A former lawyer, political operator and Governor of Ohio, he gained the presidency mostly by running a "front porch campaign", giving his speeches and addressing his supporters from his own house. He ran mostly on a platform of protecting the economy with high tariffs; he had been chairman of the congressional committee which had drafted the "McKinley Tariff" of 1890, under which the average duty on imported goods rose to almost 50%. He also advocated keeping the gold standard at a time when his Democratic opponent, William Jennings Bryan, was promoting the free coning of silver (and little else). When that issue failed to excite the nation, McKinley won the election handily. Continued prosperity once he was elected is no doubt the reason he remained popular.
The Spanish-American war broke out during his first term in 1898, mostly over the issue of independence for Cuba. The American victory was quick and decisive with both the army and navy winning nearly every engagement. When the dust had settled, control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Phillipines were all relinquished to the U.S. Hawaii was also annexed without a fight to further expand American influence in the Pacific. McKinley also ordered 5,000 troops to China when the Boxer Rebellion erupted to protect both U.S. citizens from forcible expulsion and ensure asian trade stayed open.
This combination of strong economy, territorial gain, and success on the international stage meant it was relatively easy for him to win a second term in 1900, which he barely got a chance to enjoy before his untimely assassination.
He was the last American Civil War veteran to be president and was also the first president to be elected during an Olympic year (the year of the first modern games, 1896), to ride in a car, and to campaign by telephone. He used to be on the $500 dollar bill, but these have been discontinued since 1969.
He was the inspiration for The Wizard in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
William McKinley in Fiction
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