Mark Hanna: McKinley's Front Porch Campaign and the Volcano Stamp

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Mark Hanna was born in Ohio in 1837, attended high school in Cleveland with John D. Rockefeller, and was expelled from college for distributing mock programs at a solemn ceremony. His early ventures failed: an uninsured oil refinery burned and a Great Lakes steamship sank. He served briefly in a National Guard unit defending Washington but hired a substitute during the Civil War. He married Charlotte Rhodes over the objections of her Democratic father, coal and steel magnate Daniel Rhodes, joined the family business, and was a millionaire by 40. He first backed John Sherman, then allied with William McKinley, the lawyer who had defended miners striking against Hanna's company in 1876.

When the Panic of 1893 left Governor McKinley personally liable for more than $100,000 on a friend's loans, Hanna organized wealthy donors to clear the debt while McKinley refused to learn their names. In 1896 against William Jennings Bryan and free silver, Hanna kept McKinley home in Canton and assessed banks and corporations for a record war chest. After the win he took Sherman's Senate seat when Sherman became secretary of state. He resisted war with Spain, opposed Theodore Roosevelt as vice president, and after McKinley's 1901 assassination swung the canal vote to Panama. He died of typhoid fever in early 1904.

• Railroads cut fares so delegations could visit Canton, with leaders submitting their remarks to the campaign in advance.
• Hearst's papers drew him in a suit covered with dollar signs, working the president like a puppet.
• His Senate appointment by the Ohio legislature came amid rumors of kidnapped legislators.
• He warned the 1900 convention that only one heartbeat would separate Roosevelt from the presidency.
• He handed every senator a Nicaraguan postage stamp showing a smoking volcano to sink the Nicaragua route.