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WILLIAM McKINLEY.

WILLIAM McKINLEY, President, was born at Niles, Trumbull County, Ohio, January 29, 1843; was educated in the public schools, Poland Academy, Allegheny College; before attaining his majority he taught in the public schools; enlisted as a private in the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry June 11, 1861; promoted to commissary-sergeant April 15, 1862, to second lieutenant September 23, 1862, to first lieutenant February 7, 1863, to captain July 25. 1%4. served successively on the staffs of Generals R. B. Hayes, George Crook and Winfield S. Hancock and was brevetted major in the United States Volunteers by President Lincoln for gallantry in battle March 13, 1865; detailed for acting adjutant-general of the First Division, First Army Corps, on the staff of General S. S. Carroll; mustered out of service July 26, 1865; returning to civil life, he studied law in Mahoning County; took a course at the Albany (N. Y.) Law School, and in 1867 was admitted to the bar and settled at Canton, Ohio, which has since been his home; in 1869 he was elected prosecuting attorney of Stark County, and served a term in that office; in 1876 was elected a member of the National House of Representatives, and for fourteen years represented the congressional district of which his county was a part; as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee he reported the tariff law of 1890, but in November following was defeated for Congress in a gerrymandered district, although reducing the usual adverse majority from 3,000 to 300; in 1891 was elected governor of Ohio by a plurality of 21,511, and 1893 was re-elected by a plurality of 80,995; in 1884 was a delegate-at-large to the Republican national convention and supported James G. Blaine for president; was a member of the committee on resolutions and read the platform to the convention; in 1888 was also a delegate-at-large from Ohio, supporting John Sherman, and as chairman of the committee on resolutions again reported the platform; in 1892 was again a delegate-at-large from Ohio, and supported the nomination of Benjamin Harrison, and served as chairman of the convention. At that convention 182 votes were cast for him for president, although he had persistently refused to have his name considered. On June 18, 1896, he was nominated for president at St. Louis, receiving 661 out of 905 votes. He was elected president at the ensuing November election by a popular plurality of 600,000 votes, and received 271 electoral votes as against 176 for William J. Bryan, of Nebraska. He was again elected president in 1900.

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