Question

examine Mckinleys and Roosevelt's lives and presidencies

Answer 1

William McKinley

William McKinley served in the U.S Congress and as governor of Ohio before running the Presidency in 1896. As a longtime champion of protective tariffs, the Republican McKinley ran on a platform of promoting American prosperity and won a lanslide victory over Democrat William Jennings Bryan to became the 25th President of the Unted States. In 1898,McKinley led the nation into war with Spain over the issue of Cuban independence;the brief and decisive conflict ended with the U.S, in possession of Puerto Rico, the philippines and Guam. In general McKinley'd bold foreign policy opened the doors for the United States to play an increasingly active role in world affairs. Re-elected in 1900, McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist in Buffalo, New York, in September 1901.

Early Life and Carrer

William McKinley was born January 29, 1843, in Niles, Ohio. As a young man, he briefly attended Allegheny. College before taking a post as a country schoolteacher.

When the Civil war broke out in 1861, McKinley enlisted in the Union Army, where he eventually earned the rank of brevet major of volunteers. Returning to Ohio after the war, McKinsley studied law, opened his own practice in Cantom,Ohio, and married Ida Saxton, the daughter of a local banker.

McKinley eneterd Ohio politics in 1869 and rose through the ranks of the Republican Party, winning election to the U.S House of Representatives in 1876. Over nearly 14 years in Congress, he served as chair of the House Ways and means Committee and became known as a proponent of economic protectionism, in the form of high tariffs on imported goods.

After a tariff measure bearing his name passed in 1890,voters rejected McKinley and other Republicans due to rising consumer prices, and he returned to Ohio. The following year, he ran for governor, winning by a narrow margin:he would serve two terms in that post

President William McKinley

After the so-called Panic of 1893 led to a crippling economic depression in the United States, McKinley and his fellow Republicans regained the political advanatge over the Democrats.

McKinley won the Republican presidential nomination in 1896 thanks to his congressional and gubernatorial experience, his longtime support of protectionism and the skilled maeuvering of his chief supporter, the wealthy obhio industrialist Marcus Alonzo Hanna.

In the general electiom,McKinley faced William Jennings Bryan, who ran on a platform attacking the gold standard and supporting the coinage of silver as well as gold.Touted by Hanna as the "advance agent of prosperity" and the protector of America's financial interests in contrast to Bryan's radical policies,McKinley won the popular vote byy a margin of some 6,00,000 the largest victory in 25 years;he also won more elctoral votes than Bryan.

Domestic Agenda

Soon after taking office,McKinley called a special session of Congress in order to raise customs duties, an effort he believed would reduce other taxes and encourage the growth of domestic industry and employment for American workers. The result was the Dingley Tariif Act, the highest protective tariff in American history.

McKinley's support for the Dingley Tariff strengthened his position with organises labor, while his generally business-freindly administration allowed industrial combinations or "trusts" to develop at an unprecedented arte.

Spanish-American War

It was foreign affairs that would determine McKinley's presidential legacy,begining with an ongoing conflict in Cuba,where Spanish forces were attempting to repress a revolutionary movement.Though the American press and public were outraged by the bloodshed, Mckinley hoped to avoid intervention, and presses Spain to make concessions.

After the U.S battelship Maine exploded in Havana's harbor in February 1898, Mckinley asked congress for the authority to intervene in the conflict; a formal declaration of war came on April 25.The Spanish-American War lasted from early May to mid-August, until U.S forces defeated Spain near Santiago harbor in Cuba, occupied Puerto Rico abd seized Manila in the Philippines.

The Treaty of Paris, signed in December 1898 and narrowly ratified by Congress the following February, offcially ended the Spanis-American war. In it, Spain ceded Puerto Rico,Guam and the Philippines to the United States and Cuba gained its independence.

Mckinley's administration also pursued an influential "Open door" policy aimed as supporting American commercial interests in China and ensuring a strong U.S position in world marekt. In 1900, Mckinley backed up this policy by sending American troops to help out down the Boxer Rebellion a nationalist uprising against foerign intervention in China.

Re-election in 1900

In 1900,McKinley again faced William Jennings Bryam, who ran on an anti-imperialism platform, and was reelcted with an even greater margin of victory than he obatined four years ealier. The outcome reflected the American public's satisfaction with teh outcome of the Spanish-American War and the country's economic prosperity.

After his second inaguration in March 1901, McKinley embarked on a tour of western states, where he was greeted by cheerong crowds. The tour ended in Buffalo,New York where he gave a speech on september 5 in front of 50,000 people at the Pan-America Expostion.

Assassination

At the Pan-American Exposition, McKinley was standing in a receiving line when a unemployed Detroit mill worker named Leon Czologosz shot McKinleym twicw in the chest at point-blank range. Czologosz, an anarchist, later admitted to the shooting and calimed to have killed the President because he was the "enemy of the people". He was executed in October 1901.

Rushed to a Buffalo hospital, Mckinley initially received a hopeful prognosis, but gangrene set in around his wounds and he died eight days later. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt suceeded him.

Franklin D Roosevelt

Frankiln D Roosevelt was in his second term as governor of New York when he was elected as the nation's 32nd President in 1932.With the country mired in the depths of the Great Depression, Roosevelt immediately acted to restore public confidence, proclaiming a bank holiday and speaking directly to the public in a series of radio broadcasts or "fireside chats". His ambitious slate of New Deal programs and reforms redefined the role of the federal government in the lives of Americans.

Early life and Career

Born on january 20,1882 on alarge estate near the village of Hyde Park, New York, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the only child of his wealthy parents, James and Sara Delano Roosevelt.

He attented law school at Cokumbia University and worked for several years as a clerk in a Wall Street law firm. in 1910, he entered politics, winning a state senate seat as a Democrat in the heavily Republican Dutchess County. In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson named Roosevelt assistant secretary of the U.S Navy. He would hold that post for the next seven yaers, traveling to Europe in 1918 to tour naval bases and battlefields after the U.S entrance into World War I.

In 1921,Roosevelt was diagnosed with polio when he was 39 years old.

Roosevelt enters the White House

Re-elected as governor in 1930 Roosevelt emerged as a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination two years later. He broke tradition and appeared in person in Chicago to accept the nomination, famously pledging himself, to "a new deal for the American people". In the general elction , a confident and exuberant Roosevelt truimphered by an overwhelming margin over the incumbent Hoover, who had became a symbol for many people of the ongoing Great Depression.

Roosevelt began tha momentous first 100 days of his presidency by closing all banks for several days until congress could pass reform legislation.

Roosevelt and the New Deal

Other key pieces of legislation during FDR's first "Hundred Days"created some of the most important programs and institutions of Roosevelt's New Deal, including the Agricultural Adjustment Administration(AAA), the Public Works Administration (PWA), the Civilian Conservations Corps (CCC) amd the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). In addition to programs aimed at providing economic reliefs for workers and farmers and creating jobs for the unemployed, Roosevelt also intitated a slate of reforms of the financial system,notably the creation of the Federal deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to protect depositors accounts and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to regulate the stock market and prevent abuses of the kind that led to the 1929 crash.

In 1935 after the economy had begun to show signs of recovery Roosevelt asked congress to pass a new wave of reforms known as "Second New Deal". These included the Social Security Act and the Works Progress Administration.

Roosevelt's Reelction and "Counter-Packing"

Controversial but extreemly popular voters, Roosevelt won re-election by a huge margin in 1936 over Governor Alfred M Landon of Kankas. He faced opposition from the Supreme Court over his New Deal Programs, and proposed and expansion of the court that would allow him to appoint one new Justice for every sitting Justice 70 or older. After heated debate Congress rejected this "counter-packing" scheme, handing FDR the biggest setback of his career. Nonetheless, the Court abruptly chaged direction, upholding both the Social Security Act and the Wagner Act.

FDR and World War II

As early as 1937, FDR warned the American public about the dangers posed by hard-line regimes in Germany, Italy and Japan, though he stopped short of suggesting America should of suggesting America should abandon its isolationist policy. after World war II broke out in september 1939, however Roosevelt called a special session of congress in order to revise the country's existing neutrality acts and allow Britain and France to purchase American arms on a "cash-and-carry" basis. Roosevelt decided to run for reelection again in 1940 ;he defeated Wendell L Wilkie by nearly 5 million votes.

Roosevelt increased his support of Great Britain with passage of the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941 and met with Prime Minister Winston Churchill in August abroad a battleship anchored off Canada. In reslting Atlantic Charter, the two leaders declared the "Four Freedoms" on which the post-war world shold be founded:freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion, freedom from want and freedom from fear.

On december 8 1941, the day adter Japan bombed the U.S naval base at Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt appeared before a joint session of congress, which declared war on Japan.

Yalta Conference and Roosevelt's Death

In 1944, as the tide of war turned toward the Allies, a weary and ailing Roosvelt managed to win election to afourth term in the White House. The following February, he met with Churchill and Stalin in the Yalta Conference, where Roosevelt got Stalin's commitment to enter the war against Japn after Germany's impending surrender.

After Roosevelt returned from Yalta, he was so weak that he was forced to sit down and while addressing congress for the first time in his presidency. In early April 1945, he left Washinton and traveled to his cottage in Warm Springs, Georgia where he had long before established a nonproit fiundation to aid polio patients. Roosvelt suffered a massivee cerebral hemorrhage and died on April 12, 1945. He was suceeded in office by his Vice President Harry S Truman.