William McKinley Opinions?

[Higgins]

What are the opinions of this board on William McKinley? Honestly, while he was a bit too pro-business, he doesn't seem that bad compared to some of his predecessors or successors. I would take McKinley over Harding, Coolidge, Nixon, and Reagan in a heartbeat, and over Garfield, A. Johnson, and Cleveland before him.

[This is Eharding, guys]

HP due to tariff, Philippine war, gold standard support. But Bryan would have encouraged the worst Jim Crow tendencies of the South, so it was probably wise to keep him out of office. Bryan's economic policies were probably better, though.

[Mr. Reactionary]

HP FF due to tariff, Philippine war, gold standard support. But And Bryan would have encouraged the worst Jim Crow tendencies of the South, so it was probably wise to keep him out of office.

[Lechasseur]

FF

[TDAS04]

HP

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Crucified labor on a cross of gold, hp.

[Mr. Smith]

HP.

And as for "muh Jim Crow", well at least Bryan wouldn't have exported that attitude to the Philippines and Cuba because there'd be no annexation once the war (assuming that happens) finished.

Also, Hawaii would've been treated with more respect.


Anyway:

Grover Cleveland at least had a decent foreign policy

Harrison at least was open to free silver on some level

Roosevelt was open to at least the Booker T. Washington ideas of civil rights, albeit just lip service and was somewhat progressive regarding anti-trust.

Can't name a single saving feature from Ohio Mediocrity #2

[TheLeftwardTide]

Crucified labor on a cross of gold, hp.

[RINO Tom]

FF

[Kingpoleon]

HP.

And as for "muh Jim Crow", well at least Bryan wouldn't have exported that attitude to the Philippines and Cuba because there'd be no annexation once the war (assuming that happens) finished.

Also, Hawaii would've been treated with more respect.


Anyway:

Grover Cleveland at least had a decent foreign policy

Harrison at least was open to free silver on some level

Roosevelt was open to at least the Booker T. Washington ideas of civil rights, albeit just lip service and was somewhat progressive regarding anti-trust.

Can't name a single saving feature from Ohio Mediocrity #2

At least in 1896, I'm fairly certain the Republican Party platform was fairly open to free coinage of silver.

[Fight for Trump]

Certainly one of the better Republicans. FF

[OSR stands with Israel]

2nd Best President from 1865-1932

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Fantastic president. We need more like him.

[Pyro]

Very HP

[MarkD]

He made only one appointment to the Supreme Court, and it was an awful appointment.

William McKinley and Joseph McKenna first got to know each other, and became friends and allies, when they were serving in the U.S. House together, both on the Ways and Means Committee. McKenna was a Republican congressman from California while McKinley was a Republican congressman from Ohio.
President Benjamin Harrison appointed McKenna to be a judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the year 1892. He ended up staying for five years on that bench, and during that time the lawyers and other judges who got to know him decided that McKenna was a fair and honest judge, without corruption, but that it was painfully obvious that McKenna was not adequately educated. In fact, it seemed to many observers that McKenna was barely even literate.
In 1896, McKinley was successfully elected President, and he chose as one of his first cabinet appointments to bring his friend from California back to Washington D.C. to serve as Attorney General. McKenna spent slightly less than one year in that role, then when a vacancy opened on the Supreme Court in 1898, McKinley nominated McKenna.
The nomination was met with some strong cries from people familiar with the Ninth Circuit that McKenna was a poor choice, that he simply did not know enough about law, and that he could barely even write coherently. McKenna was confirmed by the Senate anyway. In order to answer his critics that he knew hardly anything at all about law, McKenna supplemented his previously sparse legal training by spending a lot of time in law libraries, reading much more and catching up.
During the next 27 years that he served, he was the fifth, or sixth, vote on some of the worst decisions that the Court would render: Lochner v. New York (by 5 to 4), Coppage v. Kansas (by 6 to 3), and Adkins v. Children's Hospital (by 5 to 3). McKenna's conclusions in those three cases, along with that of four or five of his colleagues, was that employers have a constitutional right to overwork their employees, to underpay them, and to prevent them from joining unions.
Lochner v. New York
Coppage v. Kansas
Adkins v. Children's Hospital

By 1924, McKenna was showing obvious signs of dementia. There was one occasion in which he was assigned the task of writing opinion for a court majority, and he ended up writing about a conclusion that was the exact opposite of what he was supposed to say and the way he had voted. His eight colleagues met behind his back and mutually agreed with one another that every time they were evenly divided by four to four, they would not allow him to cast the deciding vote; they would postpone the decision in those cases until after McKenna retired. They begged him to retire, trying to convince him that his mind was no longer functioning properly. He replied, "When a man retires, he disappears, and no one cares for him." But finally, after weeks of discussion about his mental health, he finally did resign in January, 1925.

Appointing McKenna to the Supreme Court, merely because he was an ally, was one of the worst things William McKinley would ever do.

[darklordoftech]

HP. Screwed over consumers with tariffs, screwed over Hawaii and the Phillipines with imperialism, and started a system of campaign funding that continues to cause problems to this day. I think the gold standard was better than the silver standard, so I'll give him that. I think Cleveland was the best President of the Gilded Age thanks to his lack of authoritarianism.

Bryan would have encouraged the worst Jim Crow tendencies of the South

How? Wasn't Jim Crow at the state level?