McKinley s Administration 



Fur Seal matters having called me again to Wash- 

 ington in the spring of 1897, I was present at the 

 inauguration of McKinley, and received soon after 

 an invitation to dinner at the White House to meet 

 the new Cabinet. McKinley' s associates impressed 

 me less favorably as a whole than Cleveland's Cabinet 

 Cabinet, but some of them had both character and 

 force. Secretary Long of the Navy, ex-governor of 

 Massachusetts, by whom I sat, seemed to be a man 

 of marked ability. Lyman J. Gage, Secretary of 

 the Treasury, I came later to know well and to hold 

 in high esteem. Alger of the War Department un- 

 fortunately soon had on his hands the Spanish War, 

 involving a strain for which he was quite unfitted. 



John Sherman, Secretary of State, with whom I John 

 afterward had many dealings, was always interest- Sberman 

 ing, although then very old and forgetful as to cur- 

 rent happenings. It was under his general direction 

 that our commission carried on its work, about which 

 I had frequent interviews with him; but he often 

 forgot why I was in Washington. His appointment 

 as Secretary was apparently a piece of political 

 bargaining. He had long been Senator from McKin- 

 ley's own state, and the President urged him to 

 enter the new Cabinet, "which would not be com- 

 plete unless headed by the most distinguished son 

 of Ohio/* Sherman having consented, Mark Hanna, 

 McKinley's adviser and financial backer, was 

 promptly elected to the senatorship. 



Sherman's inability to deal with current details 

 (though he still held a firm grasp on principles) soon 



C 573 H 



