William McKinley

William McKinley (January 29, 1843 – 1 March, 1922) was the 25th president of the United States, serving from March 4, 1897 to the end of his second term at March 4, 1905.

McKinley led the Second Republic to the victory during the Spanish-American War, promoted protectionism through raised protective tariffs and kept the American nation on the gold standard. His successful tenure as a President led to overshadowing of the Progressive wing of the Republican Party, led by his late Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt, until the electoral victory of Leonard Wood in 1920.

While generally McKinley presidency was positively percieved by many of his contemproraries for beneficial business policies and successful interventionist foreign policy, modern historiography percieves his appeasement of the powerful business magnates at the expense of organized labor and his reluctance to deal with the class struggle in America as the leading factors that contributed to the rise of popularity of the Socialist Labor Party and disillusionment of the American working class with the capitalist system.