THE BATTLE OF THE STANDARDS 173 



national Republican party. Because he had found 

 that political power was helpful in the prosecution 

 of his vast business enterprises, he went forth to 

 accumulate political power, just as frankly as he 

 would have gone to buy the machinery for pump- 

 ing oil from one of his wells. Hanna was a stanch 

 friend of the gold standard, but he was too clever to 

 alienate the sympathies of the Republican silverites 

 by supporting the nomination of a man known to 

 be an uncompromising advocate of gold. He chose 

 a safer candidate, a man whose character he sin- 

 cerely admired and whose opinions he might re 

 sonably expect to sway his personal friend, Ma- 

 jor William McKinley. This was a clever choice: 

 McKinley was known to the public largely as the 

 author of the McKinley tariff bill; his protec- 

 tionism pleased the East; and what was known 

 of his attitude on the currency question did not 

 offend the West. In Congress he had voted for 

 the Bland- Allison bill and had advocated the freer 

 use of silver. McKinley was, indeed, an ideally 

 "safe" candidate, an upright, affable gentleman 

 whose aquiline features conferred on him the sem- 

 blance of commanding power and masked the es- 

 sential weakness and indecision which would make 

 him, from Mark Hanna's point of view, a desirable 



