of society was spreading rapidly. Hull House, opened in 1889 by
Jane Addams, had a host of imitators in the cities, and enabled social
workers to study the results of industrial progress upon the laboring
class.

The new reforms, mechanical and otherwise, established themselves about
1890, and were taken up by the Populist party between 1892 and 1896.
Neither great party noticed the reforms before 1896, but in each party
the younger workers saw their point. As non-partisan movements they
gained adherents before the Populist party died out, and were pressed
more and more seriously upon reluctant organizations. As a whole they
were an attempt to make government more truly representative of the
voters, and to take the control of affairs from the hands of men who
might and often did use them for private aggrandizement. They were
overshadowed in 1896 by the paramount issue of free silver, and were
deferred in their fulfilment for a decade by accidents which drove them
from the public mind. The Spanish War, reviving prosperity, and the
renewal of tariff legislation, did not check the activities of the
reformers, but did divert the attention of the public.

William McKinley was inaugurated on March 4, 1897. He had served in five
Congresses and had been three times governor of Ohio. He "knew the
legislative body thoroughly, its composition, its methods, its habits of
thought," said John Hay. "He had the profoundest respect for its
authority and an inflexible belief in the ultimate rectitude of its
purposes." He was not likely to embarrass business through bluntness or
inexperience. He had risen through a kindly disposition, a recognition
of the political value of tact, and an unusual skill as a moderator of
variant opinions. He believed that his function was to represent the
popular will as rapidly as it expressed itself, differing fundamentally
in this from Cleveland, who thought himself bound to act in the interest
of the people as he saw it. His Cabinet reflected the interests that
secured his election.

The trend of issues had made the Republican party, by 1897, the party of
organized business. For twelve years the alliance had grown steadily
closer. Marcus A. Hanna was its spokesman. The burlesque of his sincere
and kindly face, drawn by a caricaturist, Davenport, for Eastern papers,
created for the popular eye the type of commercialized magnate, but it
did him great injustice. Self-respecting and direct, he believed it