a little as a candidate for President during
the closing days of the Cleveland Administration. I was urged to
lend my name for the purpose, particularly by men in the East whom
I always regarded as my friends. I afterwards learned, although
I was not so informed at the time, that they had determined to beat
McKinley at all hazards and nominate Speaker Reed if they could,
their policy being to have the different States send delegations
in favor of "favorite sons." Senator Allison was selected as the
"favorite son" from Iowa, and efforts were made to carry the Illinois
delegation for me. They hoped by this means, when the delegates
assembled at St. Louis, to agree on some one, almost any one, except
McKinley--Reed if they could, or Allison, or me.

Mr. McKinley, through friends, about this time offered me all sorts
of inducements to withdraw. Judge Grosscup was the intermediary,
and there was hardly anything in the Administration, or hardly any
promise, he would not have made me if I had consented to withdraw.
I felt that I could not do so. When they found it was impossible
to beg me off they determined to carry the State over me. Money
was spent freely in characteristic Hanna fashion, his motto being,
"accomplish results." McKinley was exceedingly popular, in addition,
and after our State Convention had assembled and endorsed him, I
withdrew from the contest. At the time I thought that if I could
have carried the delegation from my own State, as Senator Allison
did his, it would have broken the McKinley boom, and one or the
other of us would have been nominated. But as I look back on it
now, it seems to me that no one could have beaten McKinley; and
even if he had lost Illinois, as he lost Iowa, he still would have
had sufficient delegates to secure his nomination.

The McKinley campaign was one of the most interesting and quite
the liveliest in which I have ever participated. It was a campaign
of education from beginning to end. At first the Republicans tried
to make the tariff the issue, and in a sense it remained one of
the most important; but we were soon compelled to accept silver as
the issue, and fight it out on that line. Silver was comparatively
a new question; the people did not understand it, and they attended
the meetings, listening attentively to the campaign speeches.

There was considerable satisfaction in speaking during the campaign
of 1896: one was always assured of a large and interes