Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 February 1912 — McKinley in Misfortune [ARTICLE]

McKinley in Misfortune

William 8. Hawk’s Story of the Fortitude With Which the Ohioan Met Financial Disaster That Seemingly Ended His Caredr. William S. Hawk, president of the Ohio’ Society of New York city, one of the largest nf the state organizations of the metropolis, was for many years as intimate a personal friend as William McKinley had. The intimacy began in Canton, Ohio, which was the boyhood and early manhood home of Mr. Hawk. How close that intimacy was may be judged from the fact that Mr. and Mrs. McKinley invited Mr. Hawk and his family to become their personal guests at the White House at the time of McKinley’s inauguartlon as president Probably no one now living had better opportunities for observing McKinley in the privacy and the charm of his domestic life, or of learning what McKinley’s real personal character was, than had Mr. Hawk. “I always knew that McKinley had strength enough of character to meet courageously, without flinching, any emergency, however, serious; I was perfectly prepared for the fortitude and the beautiful resignation which

he displayed after he was laid low by the assassin’s bullet His conduct at that time was exactly what I would have' predicted,” said Mr. Hawk recently. ■-M s '• “But I think, after looking back over my years of close intimacy with him, that possibly the finest example of his courage, of his ability to stand up against most grievous emergency, and embarrassment, occurred at a time when he was a guest at my home in New York city. "McKinley was then governor of Ohio. He looked forward to the future with confidence; he felt assured that the setback he had received through his defeat for-congress was only temporary. He was in the best of health and spirits. He was never more buoyant. And then, suddenly, there came a dispatch from Ohio informing him of the disastrous failure of a business associate. "I was with him when the came. He did not flinch when he read it. Yet I knew from his attitude the thought that was dominating his mind: this failure would make it necessary for him to give up his cherished public career—he would have to begin life all over again--he would have to make determined efforts to meet the obligations which his associate had assumed, for, whatever the law might say about some of them, nevertheless there was a moral responsibility attached to all of them. > "It was at this moment that Mrs. McKinley, to whom McKinley had Shown the dispatch, declared that he must take all of her personal fortune, or so much of ft as was necessary, in orfier to meet these obligations immediately. McKinley's only, reply was that it was incumbent on them to pack up their things ImmedP ately and take the first train for Ohio. And he said it smilingly and as calmly, outwardly, as though no great shadow had settled down upon him, as though his 'cherished political ambitions had been realized instead of shattered. “An hour or two later he bade me goodby. I knew that he was going back to Ohio confident that his public career was ended and with the full knowledge that be must begin all over again—that he had actually to go to work to earn an income sufficient to support Mrs. McKinley and himself. Yet in his countenance I could not detect the slightest hint of resentment, the slightest trace of sorrow, or any indication whatsoever of the crushing fiense. of disappointment that he must inwardly have felt to his belief that all his high hopes of a public career had been shattered. "Fortunately, as is well known, there were friends whp-were able to finance McKinley out of Iris difficulty; and how great was McKinley’s happiness when he found that it was not necessary for him to give up his public career no one need to be told.” (Copyright, 1911. by E. J. Edwards. All Rights Reserved.)