by Patrick J. Buchanan – July 9, 1997

On this year’s centennial of the inauguration of William McKinley, Ohio University professor Alfred E. Eckes, a trade official under Ronald Reagan, addressed Ohio’s Historical Society. Subject: our 25th president, assassinated by an anarchist in Buffalo in 1901. McKinley’s was a truly extraordinary presidency.

A teenager at Antietam and Civil War veteran of four years fighting, McKinley took over a nation still wracked by the Panic of 1893. To restore prosperity, he raised tariffs, taxing imports rather than workers, and gave America an annual growth rate of 7 percent!