Mark Hanna
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- For the film screenwriter and actor, see Mark Hanna (screenwriter).
Template:Infobox Politician Marcus Alonzo Hanna (September 24, 1837 – February 15, 1904), best known as Mark Hanna, was an industrialist and Republican politician from Cleveland, Ohio. He rose to fame as the campaign manager of the successful Republican Presidential candidate William McKinley in the U.S. Presidential election of 1896, in the first modern political campaign,Template:Cn and subsequently became one of the most powerful members of the U.S. Senate.
Early life
In 1844, Hanna arrived in Cleveland, Ohio. He attended the Cleveland Central High School, where he befriended the young John D. Rockefeller, [1] and subsequently enrolled in Western Reserve College, though he did not complete his studies.[2] After working for his father's grocery business, the young Hanna became involved in numerous unsuccessful business ventures. He served as a quartermaster in the U.S. Army during the Civil War, and was always close to veterans' organizations. (It is not true that he was awarded the Medal of Honor--that was an unrelated Marcus Hanna.) After 1867 he became rich as a shipper and broker serving the coal and iron industries. Cleveland was emerging as a major transhipping point between the Great Lakes ore deposits and the mills of eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, and Hanna loved making deals and bargains on a daily basis over a wide range of products and services. Hanna was one of the few industrialists fascinated less by profits than by the outdoor spectacle and indoor bargaining of politics.
He was a long time member of the St. John's Episcopal Church (Cleveland, Ohio).
Manager of campaigns
Hanna made a transition into politics during the 1880s and in 1888, he managed Ohio Senator John Sherman's unsuccessful effort to gain the Republican presidential nomination. Rep. William McKinley had tried unsuccessfully to win the position of Speaker of the House in 1891, losing to Maine Rep. Thomas B. Reed who was backed by Theodore Roosevelt. McKinley then turned his attentions to running for Governor of Ohio. Hanna helped McKinley win the 1891 and 1893 elections for Governor of Ohio and became his chief advisor.
McKinley's only competition for the Republican nomination in 1896 was Speaker Reed. After Hanna attended a speech Reed gave in Washington, he realized that Reed lacked the presidential appearance or stature McKinley possessed. McKinley won the 1896 Republican nomination for president, Hanna, as Chairman of the Republican National Committee, raised an unprecedented $3.5 million for McKinley's campaign for the gold standard, high tariffs, high wages, pluralism and renewed prosperity. Most of the money came from corporations who feared that William Jennings Bryan's more radical Free Silver policy would ruin the entire economy. By October the Democrats realized they were losing on the money issue and targeted Hanna as the arch-villain who threatened to put corporate interests ahead of the national interest.[3] As McKinley was highly likeable, Hanna became a target of Bryanites, especially William Randolph Hearst and his New York Journal.
Hanna's campaign employed 1,400 people, who concentrated a flood of pamphlets, leaflets, posters, and stump speakers. McKinley defeated Bryan by an electoral vote of 271 to 176. At the time, it was the most expensive campaign ever in U.S. politics, with the McKinley campaign outspending Bryan's by nearly 12 to 1. Today it is considered the forerunner of the modern political campaign for its adroit use of publicity, its overall national plan, its strategic use of issues, and especially the candidate's own speech making.
Election to U.S. Senate
Once elected, McKinley appointed Senator Sherman to his Cabinet, and Hanna was elected by the Ohio legislature in March of 1897 to fill the remainder of that term, and then re-elected to the subsequent term. As the economy recovered and international triumphs against Spain bolstered McKinley's popularity, the 1900 rematch was an easy victory for Hanna. Taking his place in the Senate, he came out from McKinley's shadow and played an influential role in terms of selecting the Panama route for a canal. More importantly, Hanna worked with the National Civic Federation as a concilator regarding labor strife. He succeeded to a considerable extent in attracting labor unions into the Republican fold and heading off major strikes that would be not only economically damaging but politically and socially divisive.
Hanna and Roosevelt
Hanna and Theodore Roosevelt had been allies when they met in 1884, but they became rivals, initially due to their disagreement about the Spanish-American War. Roosevelt strongly favored war with Spain; Hanna resisted war until public opinion demanded it. In 1900, New York politicians wanted Governor Roosevelt to become vice president. Hanna lacked the political power to stop it. One of the leading powers in the conservative (and Rockefeller) faction of the Republican party, Hanna lost influence when McKinley was assassinated, replaced by the somewhat more progressive (Morgan faction) Roosevelt. Upon hearing the news, Hanna reputedly remarked that "Now that damn cowboy is president." Hanna and Roosevelt worked together (particularly on the Panama Canal) and although they remained personally cordial, they considered each other political rivals.
Death and legacy
Hanna was expected to run against Roosevelt for the Republican nomination for president in the 1904 election. The rivalry was cut short by Hanna's death of typhoid fever, at the peak of his power, in February of that year. Hanna is buried in Cleveland's Lakeview Cemetery.
The Hanna Building on the corner of Euclid Avenue and East 14th Street in Cleveland bears his name.
Hanna was the father of Ruth Hanna McCormick, who married a U.S. Representative and Senator, and herself served in the United States House of Representatives.
References
- Croly, Herbert. Marcus Alonzo Hanna: His Life and Work (New York, 1912), biography
- James Ford Rhodes. The McKinley and Roosevelt Administrations, 1897-1909 (1922), Rhodes was Hanna's brother-in-law
- ↑ Richard F. Hamilton (2006). President Mckinley, War And Empire, 54. ISBN 0765803291.
- ↑ Marcus Alonzo Hanna. Ohio History Central.
- ↑ "A wealthy industrialist, Hanna [...] believed that government existed primarily to help business. He once told the Ohio attorney general, who sued to dissolve Standard Oil, to drop the suit. 'Come on,' Hanna pronounced, 'you've been in politics long enough to know that no man in public life owes the public anything." Linking Rings: William W. Durbin and the Magic and Mystery of America, James D. Robenalt, Kent State University Press, Ohio, pp. 11-12
External links