Americans. These will not be profitable in a commercial sense; they will be messengers of peace and amity wherever they go.

"We must build the isthmian canal, which will unite the two oceans and give a straight line of water communication with the western coasts of Central America, South America and Mexico. The construction of a Pacific cable cannot be longer postponed.

GIVES BLAINE CREDIT.

"In furtherance of these objects of national interest and concern you are performing an important part. This exposition would have touched the heart of that American statesman whose mind was ever alert and thought ever constant for a larger commerce and a truer fraternity of the republics of the new world. His broad American spirit is felt and manifested here. He needs no identification to an assemblage of Americans anywhere, for the name of Blaine is inseparably associated with the Pan-American movement, which finds this practical and substantial expression, and which we all hope will be firmly advanced by the Pan-American congress that assembles this autumn in the capital of Mexico.

"The good work will go on. It cannot be stopped. These buildings will disappear, this creation of art and beauty and industry will perish from sight, but their influence will remain to

"Make it live beyond its too short living
With praises and thanksgiving.

"Who can tell the new thoughts that have been awakened, the ambitions fired and the high achievements that will be wrought through this exposition?

"Gentlemen, let us ever remember that our interest is in concord, not conflict, and that our real eminence rests in the victories of peace, not those of war. We hope that all who are represented here may be moved to higher and nobler effort for their own and the world's good, and that out of this city may come not only greater commerce and trade for us all, but, more essential than these, relations of mutual respect, confidence and friendship, which will deepen and endure.

"Our earnest prayer is that God will graciously vouchsafe prosperity, happiness and peace to all our neighbors and like blessings to all the peoples and powers of earth.”

CHAPTER X.

WILLIAM MCKINLEY'S BOYHOOD.

William McKinley was born in Ohio, his ancestors having emigrated to the United States from County Antrim, Ireland. In that ancestry, also, was mingled some of the sterling blood of the Scottish race, and it seems the child who was destined to become twenty-fifth President of the United States combined in his nature the choicest qualities of both races, enriched and broadened by generations of American life. His great-grandfather, David McKinley, was the son of a Revolutionary soldier, and was born in Pennsylvania the year before peace with England was declared.

After the independence of the United States had been achieved, this David McKinley was brought by his soldier father from York to Westmoreland County, Pa., and the lad himself, as he grew to manhood, chose the new State of Ohio as a place of residence, and established there the fortunes and the hopes of the McKinley family.

His grandson, William McKinley, the father of the President, was the second child in a family of thirteen, and was born at New Lisbon, Ohio. He was engaged in the iron and foundry business, and resided successively at New Lisbon, Niles, Poland and finally Canton. It was while engaged in the iron industry, then in a primitive stage of development, at Niles, Ohio, that William McKinley, the elder, met and married Miss Nancy Campbell Allison, daughter of a well-to-do business man in the growing Ohio town. And there was born, on January 29, 1843, William McKinley, subject of this biography, and a third martyr President of the United States. The father was at that time manager and part owner of an iron furnace. But seeing greater possibilities in the newer region about Poland, he disposed of his interests at Niles, and removed thither, where he again established a forge.

Surrounding the rising town of Poland lies a fine agricultural country, and in the healthful environment of rural scenes and labor's activities the earliest years of the life of William McKinley, Jr., were spent. Through his mother's family he traced his lineage back to the substantial middle classes of England. And this excellent woman must have possessed in mind

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and soul and bodily frame the better qualities of the Anglo-Saxon race. Her influence upon this son was pronounced from the beginning; and it seems that an almost prophetic power was given her, for if the whole of the future had been revealed to her she could have guided him no more wisely, could have laid with no more sagacious skill the foundations which his career as statesman and as man required.

And no mother was ever more devotedly loved by son than was this American matron by William McKinley. Throughout her life he made her comfort his own care, and maintained with an increasing tenderness the gentle bearing which, as a child, had been part of his life. In her age, when she had lived to see her son elevated to the chiefest office in the Nation, the beauty of that filial attachment appealed to the people, and untold thousands proved their appreciation when they lovingly bestowed upon her the title, "Mother McKinley."

One of the reasons for the elder McKinley's removal to Poland was that his children might have the advantages of the better schools which— oddly enough-flourished in the younger city. An academy had been established there; and when young William passed through the preparatory years, he was admitted to that institution. As he passed from childhood to youth's estate, he filled the months of vacation in productive labor. At times he worked upon the farms which surrounded the growing, thriving town. At other times he engaged as a clerk in one or other of the stores. But he was never apt at a trade, and really had not the faculty to “buy, and sell, and get gain," as had his younger brother Abner. And as a consequence he maintained that attitude of balance which left him free in his development, and permitted that ripening and broadening of his mind in all directions which the early adoption of a mercantile life would almost certainly have prevented. And it was proof of still another virtue on the lad's part that he preferred, of all the industries that came to his hand, the heavy labor of the forge and foundry. Those years of healthful life, when native powers were developed by bodily industry, when regular hours, plain but abundant food, and long hours of restful sleep were adding to brain and brawn, when the wise mother was guiding him so gently in morals and manners—in those years the character of the future President, the statesman, the soldier and the American patriot, was formed.

As he acquired more of the learning which the academy placed within his reach, young William employed portions of his vacations in teaching school. Not only did this occupation furnish him admirable discipline and