McKinley was well-regarded in his time. He was the last President who was a Civil War veteran, and the last one to see combat. He was the Commander-In-Chief who won the Spanish-American War. On his watch, the country was prosperous and expanding.
You might think he would be considered “great” today, because the year he first ran in 1896, the country was in a deep Recession, and he turned that around. GDP expanded rapidly, and William McKinley got the credit. He enacted protective tariffs, maintained the Gold standard, and for the time steered a middle course.
During his first term the country was booming, it was the victor in a short war, so what was not to like? It was fully understandable that McKinley was re-elected resoundingly in 1900.
So how come McKinley isn’t thought of as “great” today? Most likely because he was succeeded by Theodore Roosevelt, who’s generally considered to be one of our half-dozen greatest Presidents. Roosevelt, like McKinley, presided over ongoing economic expansion, but beyond that he was an electrifying public personality who used mass media in ways it hadn’t been used before. He was a decorated combat veteran in a recent war, had a large, lively, photogenic family, was a former rancher and cowboy who led the “strenuous life”. He was considered a “trust buster” in an age of reform, an enthusiastic imperialist in a time when expansionism was all the rage. (McKinley had been reluctant, at best.)
So little wonder Teddy Roosevelt was beloved by the American public, Mark Twain’s demurrals notwithstanding ….
Mr. Roosevelt is the Tom Sawyer of the political world of the twentieth century; always showing off; always hunting for a chance to show off; in his frenzied imagination the Great Republic is a vast Barnum circus with him for a clown and the whole world for audience; he would go to Halifax for half a chance to show off, and he would go to hell for a whole one. …
He is the most formidable disaster that has befallen the country since the Civil War – but the vast mass of the nation loves him, is frantically fond of him, even idolizes him. This is the simple truth. It sounds like a libel upon the intelligence of the human race, but it isn’t; there isn’t any way to libel the intelligence of the human race.
Here in the 21st Century, McKinley is considered an above average President. But the fact that his successor is considered one of the greats by most people, and the first “modern President” has made William McKinley way less remembered today.
When you’re succeeded by the “Tom Sawyer of the political world”, you … apparently … fade into the woodwork.