Page:Men of Mark in America vol 2.djvu/48

22 skill. The secret of his success was that he was practical, thorough, and yet diplomatic — a man who understood his fellow men. In March, 1897, Mr. Hanna was appointed United States senator to succeed Honorable John Sherman, who, upon the inauguration of President McKinley became the latter's secretary of state. At the assembling of the Ohio legislature he was elected his own successor and took his seat March 4, 1899. His career in the senate was marked by dignity, ability, and loyalty, and he retained his influence and popularity to the last, dying in the harness, where he had often expressed the hope that he might be when death should find him.

He took an active part in the senate debates, and, both here and on the stump, he developed oratorical powers of an unusual order. His talent in this direction came as a surprise to many persons who had known him only as a clear-headed, keen business man, terse of speech, quick of decision, vigorous and aggressive in all his dealings. His eloquence was not of the schools. It lacked the artificial graces of a studied style and practised gesture. But it had the force and vigor of a manly character behind it; a directness that was persuasive by its very honesty; and it compelled assent by that force which we call personal magnetism. It had wit and a homely wisdom in it—the wisdom of a large experience in the matters of which he spoke.

It is said that one of the principal elements in the success of Napoleon was his ability to estimate the character of his associates. In the business and political world, this faculty is quite as important as in the military; and Senator Hanna possessed it to a remarkable degree. He was not an aristocrat, in the ordinary sense of that word; but he had no time for mere words. He could read character by its natural signs and he recognized no other passport to his favor. His head was hard, but his heart was tender. He could strike with mailed hand, and strong men hesitated to invite his blow; but he could also be as tender as a parent caressing a child. To his friends and companions, he was just a hearty, kindly, good man; very simple in his tastes, unpretentious in his manners, earnest and strong in his beliefs and principles, and remarkable among men in general for his loyalty to his friends. In later life he devoted much thought and large efforts to the solution of the problems growing out of the relations of labor and capital. He called this the great aim of his life, and shortly before his death he said that he regarded what he had done in this direction