William McKinley

William McKinley enters American history with the light behind him rather than in his face: a small-town son with a soldier’s steadiness, a lawyer’s patience, and a politician’s ear tuned not for applause but for the faint crackle that runs through a country when prosperity is possible again. He is born in Niles, Ohio, in 1843, into a household that believes work is a sacrament and education the shortest road between a wish and its fulfillment. He is not a prodigy; he is dependable. At Poland Seminary he learns the grammar of argument, the usefulness of quiet, and the art of listening long enough to hear what people actually mean beneath what they say. When the war comes he enlists without embroidery, a private in the 23rd Ohio, and discovers in the field that courage often looks like carrying hot coffee to a forward post u ...