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Rh that have characterized all his undertakings. His business ventures brought him large returns in wealth, prestige, and knowledge of men and affairs, and developed those perceptive qualities which were so prominently his in political and public life.

The first appearance of Senator Hanna in national politics was in 1880, during the Garfield campaign. With becoming modesty he played an important part in bringing Roscoe Conkling and Garfield into a personal conference, and did much to ameliorate the factional bitterness of that campaign. Being a practical businessman, inheriting something of the clannish instincts of the Scotch and Irish, yet brought up in the pacific and sometimes insinuating methods of the "Friends"—he carried something of all these forces into politics, and began his work on business principles with a league of business men. He organized the Business Men's League, first in Cleveland, and helped in its extension until its silent force of organized work and influential opinion became potent throughout the country. For some time the public paid little heed to the powerful organization, beyond applauding the great "parades" of business men which became a feature of all subsequent campaigns.

In 1884, he went to the Republican national convention as a delegate pledged to support John Sherman. Four years later he went to the next convention as one of the managers of Sherman's campaign. After each of these conventions he spent a couple of months in campaign work. It was in 1894 that he began the important task of preparing the country for McKinley's election in 1896. He had known William McKinley since the early seventies, and they came to be bound together by two very strong ties—personal friendship, and a common enthusiasm for the policy of protection to American industrial interests. He took up McKinley as a business man's candidate, confidently appealing to the business men in and out of the league which he had created. But in no sense was Mr. McKinley an arbitrary selection. As Senator Hanna himself put it, he "had seen the demand for that candidate growing through three conventions; had seen the great protectionist's popularity grow and grow, and now saw the people turning toward him more and more. I had large interests myself, and I was alarmed at what I saw of the growth of socialism, the tendency toward free trade, and the threatened adoption of fiat money." He twice secured Mr. McKinley's election, but it was only the first campaign that required all his