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Title: William McKinley : (The American Presidents Series) by Kevin Phillips, Arthur M. Schlesinger ISBN: 0-8050-6953-4 Publisher: Times Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.67 (3 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: The author falls well short of his goal.
Comment: I have become a major fan of the short biographies presented in the American Presidents, and the Penguin Lives series. They are a means to provide both scholars and casual readers with insight into historical figures in a purposefully confined presentation.
Most of these figures come with an abundance of published biographies, and one measure of success for these short presentations is whether the reader is left wanting to read more extensive treatises. Unfortunately, this 200 page biography of William McKinley left me anxious to finish, and no desire to read more.
The author, Kevin Phillips, stated goal was to show how McKinley was more than just Teddy Roosevelt's predecessor, and deserved a ranking of much higher esteem. He contests the historical view that McKinley's importance is solely his expertise in tariffs. Oddly, the author then proceeds to include in each chapter significant discussion on tariffs. This made for very dry, and sometimes mind numbing reading. It also defeated his purpose of highlighting McKinley's other achievements.
As to these other accomplishments, what he provided were mostly anecdotal claims of superior skills, and simple conjectures of what he may have accomplished if not assassinated. As to the circumstances involving the assassination, the author seems to presume that the reader is too well acquainted with the story to bother providing any details. He also states that the president was more concerned with others while he lay dying, than of his own self. This is a heartening claim, but he failed to give any example of what he meant.
Furthermore, the author chose to not give any comparisons between how the Republican McKinley coped with national problems and with the current Republican president. This was an unfortunate choice by the author since it seemed like fertile ground, and would have gone far to make his subject more relevant to modern and future readers. I read the book thinking that the author was encumbered by his professional position as a Republican strategist. I now realize that he seems to have written this biography in conjunction with another book, published a few months later, faulting the Bush family's unprincipled influence on national politics.
It appears, therefore, that the author had much more to say, but chose to not do it with McKinley's help. Perhaps he was correct, and my suggestions may not have made a difference, but the resulting book gives us little to dispute the historical portrait of this president. McKinley does appear to have been a genuinely good person with many scruples not often visible in current politicians, but still not one who deserves much elevation in historical importance.
Rating: 4
Summary: Historically, Theodore Roosevelt is tough act to precede.
Comment: There is so much more to President McKinley than we know. Kevin Phillips presents his biography in an interesting & informative way. This is a postive work to be sure & Mr. Phillps argues that McKinley is a near great or, maybe a better term would be highly sucessful president.
He learned well from his service in the Civil War & and close associations with political allies & mentors Presidents Garfield, Hayes & Harrison.
Given TR's bombastic personality & energy McKinkey comes off in comparison as dull, boring & self effacing. He spent most of his time away from the job caring for his sickly wife.
However, it appears that much of TR's success can be traced to the McKinley administration. Although lackluster, he was well liked by both sides & worked well behind the scenes allowing others to take credit for his accomplishments. He didn't need the ego gratification of TR, Taft or Wilson who preceeded him. In temperment & integrity he was much like his predecessor, Grover Cleveland, although they were political opponents.
As the 20th century drew near America was at a crossroads. McKinely guided the U.S. through those historic times with skill & wisdom.
When he took office, The U.S. was just recovering from the worst depression in history. He protected markets & wages rose.
He redeveloped kinship with England that continues today. Then there was his "Splendid little War" with Spain. It propelled the United States into a new position of economic & military significance. The United States then entered upon it own era of overseas expansion (Imperialism). This was all a percursor to what became America's Century.
Rating: 5
Summary: A lively, bold apologia for a possibly underrated president
Comment: I have tremendously enjoyed the volumes that have appeared so far in Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s The American Presidents, but this is the first volume to have appeared so far that managed to transcend the limitations inherent in a series such as this. Most of the other volumes consist of a chronological recounting of the relevant president's life and career, with some assessment of his significance and achievements. Kevin Phillips, in a comparable number of pages, manages to present a case for a complete revision of the popular understanding of William McKinley, our 25th President. Although many of McKinley's biographers have argued some of the same things that Phillips does here, he does so in a much more vigorous fashion.
The stereotype of McKinley is that he was a somewhat dimwitted puppet under the control of Big Business, a man of little imagination, no culture, and a nonprogressive who was eclipsed by the ascendance of Teddy Roosevelt following his assassination. Phillips, on the other hand, wants to argue that he was a self-confident reformer who masked his goals under a congenial exterior, possessed a highly cultivated knack for maneuvering others to his own position, was vastly more concerned with protecting laborers and wages than the desires of business, and laid the foundations for progressive reforms that he himself would have begun had his life not ended so suddenly. Phillips shows that McKinley's obsession with tariffs had little to do with a desire to reward the rich, but with a desire to increase the wages of American workers.
Though but lightly stated, much of Phillips's book is intended as a polemic against contemporary misuses of McKinley, such as Karl Rove, George W. Bush's chief aide. Many conservatives envision turning government back to a time before the unquestionably Progressive Roosevelt, to a mythical William McKinley who is assumed to share many of the values of contemporary supporters of Bush. Phillips shows over and over, however, that McKinley in fact shared almost no basic political goals or values with contemporary conservatives. Continually throughout the book, Phillips shows that McKinley had deep ties to labor, and was concerned with the needs of business primarily to the degree that healthy business meant higher wages for workers. He was quite sympathetic to organized labor, to a degree unusual in his time, and even the right of workers to strike. On the other hand, he, like all 19th century American presidents, found the accumulation of excessive amounts of wealth to be repugnant and a little obscene, hardly a quality he holds with contemporary conservatives. Even further destroying the parallels between current conservativism and McKinley, Phillips refers to McKinley's concerns with tax fairness, which did not mean lessening the tax burden on the wealthy and business, but the demand for a progressive tax structure that required those best off paying more than those less well off. McKinley's progressivism in the book comes out also in his strong support for women being given the right to vote, for blacks to be allow to vote unimpeded, and for senators to be voted by direct vote by the people, and not by selection by state legislatures.
Phillips notes that many give McKinley more credit for achievements in foreign policy, but brings the credit he deserves into sharper focus, noting that during the crisis with Spain he essentially took on the jobs of Secretary of State (due to the unexpected rapid aging of John Sherman) and Secretary of War.
Lest one imagine that these are all creative rereadings of McKinley's career based on playing lose with the facts, Phillips shows that the essential assessment he makes was borne out by the evaluations of the illustrious individuals who served in his cabinet. He also displays the causes for the unflattering portrait of McKinley that grew up after the onset of the New Deal.
One could easily disagree with much in the book, and nonetheless celebrate it for being a significant and spirited reevaluation of a significant American president. Nearly all the writers in this series have attempted to validate the claim that their subjects were underrated presidents (except Robert Remini, who though maintaining that John Quincy Adams is one of the great American public servants, concedes that he was a pretty dismal president), but Phillips wants to do more than that. In Schlesinger terminology, he wants to argue that he is a near great president, but on top of that has been horribly misunderstood in profound and important ways. Whether one agrees with his reassessment, this book performs a great service by dismantling a persistent but untenable stereotype. Of all the books in this series (I have read all but Garry Wills book on Madison), this one is by far the most invigorating one that I have read. The other volumes have deepened my knowledge of several of our presidents, but this one has actually changed my mind.
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