William McKinley Memorial

William McKinley was born on January 29, 1843 in Niles, Ohio. The son of an iron manufacturer, he briefly attended Allegany College in western Pennsylvania before taking a job as a teacher at a country school. When the Civil War broke out, the eighteen-year-old McKinley enlisted as a private in the Union Army and served in an Ohio regiment commanded by future U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes. For his bravery during the Battle of Antietam in September 1862, he received a promotion to the rank of second lieutenant. Three years later, McKinley mustered out as a brevet major. 

After the war, McKinley returned to Ohio, where he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1867. He then opened a law office in Canton and became involved in Republican politics. In 1869, McKinley became prosecuting attorney of Stark County. Two years later, he married Ida Saxton, a native of Canton and the daughter of a prominent banker. In 1876, McKinley won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Ohio’s Seventeenth Congressional District. During his tenure in Congress, which lasted nearly uninterrupted until 1891, he served for a term as chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee and was the principal sponsor of the Tariff Act of 1890 (also known as the McKinley Tariff), which raised rates for manufactured goods to their highest level in the country’s history. A year after unsuccessfully running for reelection in 1890, McKinley narrowly defeated Democratic incumbent James E. Campbell to become governor of Ohio. He ultimately served two terms from 1892 to 1896. In the latter year, McKinley secured his party’s nomination for President of the United States. Running on a platform of protectionism and maintaining the gold standard, he decisively defeated Democratic nominee William Jennings Bryan in the general election. 

As president, McKinley kept a campaign promise by signing into law the Dingley Tariff, the highest protective tariff in American history up to that point. Foreign affairs, however, dominated much of his presidency. In 1898, McKinley oversaw America’s quick and decisive victory over Spain in the Spanish-American War. As a result, the United States became an overseas empire, acquiring Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. Two years later, McKinley won reelection, defeating Democratic nominee William Jennings Bryan once again, but this time by an even wider margin. 

In the spring of 1901, less than two months after his second inauguration, McKinley embarked on a cross-country train tour. The last stop on the tour was Buffalo, New York, where the president was to deliver a speech on September 5 at the Pan-American Exposition. The following day, while McKinley was shaking hands with a crowd of people, an anarchist named Leon Czolgosz shot the president twice at point blank range. McKinley underwent emergency surgery in Buffalo and his condition improved in the subsequent days. By September 13, however, the situation had changed completely and the president’s condition had taken a turn for the worse. With his wife at his side, he died early the next morning.

Following McKinley’s death, Daniel Crilly, a member of the South Park Board of Commissioners, proposed a memorial in Chicago to honor the slain U.S. president. He assembled a committee of prominent Chicago residents, including Marshall Field and Charles Dawes, to oversee the endeavor. To cut costs, South Park commissioners agreed to melt down a neglected and disliked statue of explorer Christopher Columbus in the city’s Grant Park and reuse the bronze for the project. Once the necessary amount of money had been raised, the memorial committee commissioned sculptor Charles J. Mulligan and the architectural firm of Pond & Pond to design the memorial. Dedicated in McKinley Park on July 4, 1905, the memorial consists of a bronze statue of McKinley on a granite pedestal positioned in the center of a granite exedra. The bronze sculpture depicts the twenty-fifth president of the United States standing, with his left hand resting on a desk behind him and his right holding the pages of a famous speech he delivered on the House floor in support of the Tariff Act of 1890 (also known as the McKinley Tariff). In attendance at the unveiling ceremony, in addition to a crowd of more than 5,000 spectators, was the governor of Illinois, Charles S. Deneen, who delivered remarks. 

Freidel, Frank and Hugh S. Sidey. The Presidents of the United States of America. Washington, DC: White House Historical Association, 2006.

"William McKinley." Encyclopædia Britannica. 25 January 2021. Web. 25 February 2021 <https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-McKinley>.

"William McKinley Memorial." Chicago Park District. City of Chicago. Web. 25 February 2021 <https://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/parks-facilities/william-mckinley-memorial>.