William Mckinley Essay, Research Paper

William McKinley was the seventh of nine children born to William and Nancy Allison McKinley. He was born in the Niles in 1843. His grandfathers had both fought in the American Revolution, and in 1830 his paternal grandfather had settled in Niles, Ohio. There, he opened a small pig-iron foundry. When he was nine, he moved with his mother to nearby Portland, Ohio, where there were more opportunities to receive education. His father stayed behind for a few years to manage the foundry.

For eight years, McKinley enrolled at Poland Seminary, a private school, and studied there. He was a serious, quiet boy who excelled in public speaking. He was very much attached to his mother, and her influence on him was great. He accepted without question her strict moral standards, and her conviction that wealth was a reward for virtue and poverty was a punishment for sloth and vice. Extremely religious, she hoped that her son would enter the ministry of the Methodist Church, to which they belonged.

McKinley’s Presidential election victory gave the business world renewed confidence, and in 1897 prosperity returned, taking much of the stream out of the demands for economic reform. That year, McKinley pushed the Dingley Tariff Act through Congress, which levied even higher duties than had his own tariff of 1890. The Dingley Tariff also recognized the increasing importance of world trade to large U.S. industries. It allowed the president to negotiate reciprocal trade agreements with other countries, under which the two countries would agree to lower tariffs on specific goods that they traded with each other.