I cannot say I am a total fan of McKinley politically, after all, it was in his name that the country got its all-time high protective tariff in 1890 (not to mention his later bellicosity).  The McKinley Tariff set the taxation rate on imports at a whopping 48.4%.  The insanity of such an idea bore itself out in the resulting Panic of 1893.  But after bargaining away a strict gold standard to get the tariff passed, the republican bore down on the hard money standard for the Election of 1896.  I must admit, though, that even as a congressman McKinley was not an ardent goldbug.  He voted twice for Bland Free Coinage and even put forth an platform at the 1888 Republican convention that supported both gold and silver coinage.  But in the end, when it came down to defending hard money against the bombastic William Jennings Bryan, McKinley passes muster. If we can fault McKinley for all of the above, we must recognize the importance of shunning silver in 1896.  In the midst of the ‘long depression’, diving into silver would have caused catastrophic economic problems.

But back to the survey, for me, McKinley is just one of those presidents that you pull for subjectively.  His policies were pretty flawed, but this was a good man.  A man with no extrodinary skill.  A man who lost his only two daughters before the age of five.  A man would patiently cared for his sick wife.  A man who, according to one historian, never sought political promotion in a ‘Machevellian’ manner.  A man who, as governor, paid out of his own pocket for a railroad car of food for the destitute.  A man who then spearheaded, not the largest public spending campaign, but charity drives to feed and cloth more than 10,000 people.