Which President Was This?

 After serving in the Civil War, this President said, "I have seen the dead piled up, and I do not want to see another."

However, he believed in Manifest Destiny. The President sent the battleship Maine to the Havana harbor when Cuba went to war with Spain. Suddenly the ship blew up, killing more than 200 Yankee sailors. The American people were outraged and wanted to retaliate against Spain.  Remember the Maine was the battle cry. The President instead had a commission investigate. Theodore Roosevelt, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, said, "the President was a "White-lived cur." The Commission decided the ship hit a Spanish mine. ( Some historians think it was likely caused by a coal fire on the ship.)

In three months, America went to war and defeated Spain, and the US got Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam in the treaty with Spain. And later, the President persuaded Congress to annex Hawaii. When the Philipines revolted, he immediately sent a troop to put down the revolt, and he sent troops to put down the Boxer rebellion in China as it was in the best business concerns of America.  

The idea of the Press Room for journalists started with this  President, and the journalist loved the idea and accepted the carefully chosen "news" he handed out. 

When he turned men down for an office, he made them think he was doing them a favor and presented them with a flower from his lapel. The Secretary of War said about the President, "He had a way of handling men so that they thought his ideas were their own."

Some Republican businessmen said they would fire employees who did not vote for their candidate. He won by a landslide.

His inaugural address was the first to be filmed.

He was devoted to his wife, Ida, who unfortunately had epilepsy. If her seizures hit at a state dinner, a public gathering, or a speech, the President would drape his handkerchief over her face. The darkness helped to calm her, and when the seizure passed, the couple acted as if nothing had happened.

The President's wife, Ida. 

They had two children; Katherine (Katie) died at age 3 from typhoid fever, and little Ida was born in 1873 and died four months later.

He was elected to a second term as President. In September 1901, he attended The Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. Leon Czolgosz walked up to the President with a handkerchief wrapped around his hand. He had a gun concealed, and he fired two bullets. The President was hit in the breastbone and the abdomen. As the President fell to the floor, he said, "My wife, be careful how you tell her-oh, be careful,"

Eight days later, the President died. And Forty-five days later, Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist, was electrocuted. 

                           William McKinley  

                                        President 1897 -1901