OTHER ELEMENTS OF POPULATION.

525

Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming. The past few years have witnessed the rapid reduction of these reservations, and the adoption of a policy which, if carried to its logical conclusion with energy and good faith, will at an early date result in the universal education of the children, in the abolition of the system of reservations, and in the settlement of the Indian families upon farms of their own, as fully enfranchised American citizens.

OTHER ELEMENTS OF POPULATION.

The most potent single element of population in the Northwest is of New England origin, although more than half of it has found its way into Iowa, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Nebraska,

and Kansas, by filtration through the intermediate States of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois. But there has also been a vast direct immigration from abroad; and this element has come more largely, by far, from the northern than from the central and southern races of Europe. The Scandinavian peninsula and the countries about the Baltic and North Seas have supplied the Northwest with a population that already numbers millions. From Chicago to Montana there is now a population of full Scandinavian origin, which, perhaps, may be

LAKE-SHORE DRIVE, CHICAGO.

regarded as about equal in numbers to the population that remains in Sweden and Norway. In Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota, as well as in northern Iowa and in some parts of Nebraska, there are whole counties where the population is almost entirely Scandinavian. Upon all this portion of the country for centuries to come the Scandinavian patronymics will be as firmly fixed as they have been upon the Scotch and English coasts, where the Northmen intrenched themselves so numerously and firmly about nine hundred or a thousand years ago. The Scandinavians in the Northwest become Americans with a rapidity unequaled by any other non-English-speaking element. Their political ambition is as insatiate as that of the Irish, and they already secure offices in numbers. Their devotion to the American school system, their polit

ical aptitude and ambition, and their enthusiastic pride in American citizenship are thoroughly hopeful traits, and it is generally believed that they will contribute much of strength and sturdiness to the splendid race of Northwestern Americans that is to be developed in the Upper Mississippi and Missouri Valleys. The Northwestern Germans evince a tendency to mass in towns, as in Milwaukee, and to preserve intact their language and national traits.

SOCIETY AND GENERAL CULTURE.

The large towns of the Northwest are notable for the great numbers of the brightest and most energetic of the young business and professional men of the East that they contain. While they lack the leisure class and the traditions of culture that belong to older communities, they may justly claim a far higher percentage of college-bred men and of families of cultivated tastes than belong to Eastern towns of like population. The intense pressure of business and absorption of private pursuits are, for the present, seeming obstacles to the progress of Western communities in the highest things; but already the zeal for public improvements and for social progress in all that pertains to true culture is very great. Two decades hence no man will question the quality of Northwestern civilization. If the East is losing something of its distinctive Americanism through the influx of foreign elements and the decay of its oldtime farming communities, the growth of the Northwest, largely upon the basis of New England blood and New England ideas, will make full compensation.

Every nation of the world confronts its own racial or climatic or industrial problems, and nowhere is there to be found an ideal state of happiness or virtue or prosperity; but, all things considered, it may well be doubted whether there exists any other extensive portion, either of America or of the world, in which there is so little of pauperism, of crime, of social inequality, of ignorance, and of chafing discontent, as in the agricultural Northwest that lies between Chicago and the Rocky Mountains. Schools and churches are almost everywhere flourishing in this region, and the necessities of life are not beyond the reach of any element or class. There is a pleasantness, a hospitality, and a friendliness in the social life of the Western communities that is certainly not surpassed.

CHAPTER XXIV.

ADMINISTRATION OF MCKINLEY, 1897-1901.

William McKinley-Organization of "Greater New York"-Removal of General Grant's Remains to Morningside Park-The Klondike Gold Excitement-Spain's Misrule in Cuba-Preliminary Events of the Spanish-American War.

THE TWENTY-FIFTH PRESIDENT.

WILLIAM MCKINLEY was born at Niles, Trumbull County, Ohio, January 29, 1843, of Scotch ancestry, his father, David, being one of the pioneers of the iron business in Eastern Ohio.

The parents were in moderate circumstances, and the son, having prepared for college, was matriculated at Alleghany College, Meadville, Pennsylvania, but his poor health soon obliged him to return to his home. He became a schoolteacher at the salary of $25 per month, and, as was the custom in many of the country districts, he "boarded round;" that is, he made his home by turns with the different patrons of his school. He used rigid economy, his ambition being to save enough money to pay his way through college.

WILLIAM MCKINLEY.

Destiny, however, had another career awaiting him. The great Civil War was impending, and when the news of the firing on Fort Sumter was flashed through the land, his patriotic impulses were roused, and, like thousands of others, he hurried to the defense of his country. He enlisted in Company E, as a private. It was attached to the Twenty-third Ohio regiment, of which W. S. Rosecrans

(1843

.) One term, 1897-1901.

was colonel and Rutherford B. Hayes major. Of no other regiment can it be said that it furnished two Presidents to the United States.

For more than a year Private McKinley carried a musket, and on the 15th of April, 1862, was promoted to a sergeancy. Looking back to those stirring days of his young manhood, President McKinley has said:

"I always recall them with pleasure. Those fourteen months that I served in the ranks taught me a great deal. I was but a schoolboy when I went into the army, and that first year was a formative period of my life, during which I learned much of men and affairs. I have always been glad that I entered the service as a private and served those months in that capacity."

McKinley made a good soldier and saw plenty of fighting. Six weeks after leaving Columbus, his regiment was in the battle of Carnifex Ferry, Western Virginia, where the only victories of the early days of the war were won. It was the hardest kind of work, hurrying back and forth through the mountains, drenched by rains, and on short rations most of the time. The boy did his work well and was soon ordered to Washington, where he became one of the units in the splendid Army of the Potomac under General McClellan.

At Antietam, the bloodiest battle of the war, McKinley's gallantry was so conspicuous that he was promoted to a lieutenancy. He was sent to West Virginia again, where he was fighting continually. As an evidence of the kind of work he did, it may be said that one morning his regiment breakfasted in Pennsylvania, ate dinner in Maryland, and took supper in Virginia.

Winning promotion by his fine conduct, he became captain, July 25, 1864, and was brevetted major, on the recommendation of General Sheridan, for conspicuous bravery at Cedar Creek and Fisher's Hill. The title, "Major McKinley," therefore, is the military one by which the President is remembered.

With the coming of peace, the young man found himself a veteran of the war at the age of twenty-two, and compelled to decide upon the means of earning his living. He took up the study of law, and was graduated from the Albany, N. Y., law school, and admitted to the bar in 1867. He began practice in Canton, Ohio, and, by his ability and conscientious devotion, soon achieved He early showed an interest in politics, and was often called upon to make public addresses. He identified himself with the Republican party, and was elected district attorney in Stark County, which almost invariably went Democratic. In 1876, he was elected to Congress, against a normal Democratic majority, for five successive terms, being defeated when he ran the sixth time through the gerrymandering of his district by his political opponents.

success.

During his seven terms in Congress, Mr. McKinley was noted for his clear grasp of national questions and his interest in tariff legislation. It was in 1890 that he brought about the passage of the tariff measure which is always asso