108 Facts About Mark Hanna

Marcus Alonzo Hanna was an American businessman and Republican politician who served as a United States Senator from Ohio as well as chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Mark Hanna was born in New Lisbon, Ohio, in 1837.

Mark Hanna's family moved to the growing city of Cleveland in his teenage years, where he attended high school with John D Rockefeller, who became a lifelong friend.

Mark Hanna was expelled from college, and entered the family mercantile business.

Mark Hanna served briefly during the American Civil War and married Charlotte Rhodes; her father, Daniel Rhodes, took Hanna into his business after the war.

Mark Hanna was a partner in the firm, which grew to have interests in many areas, especially coal and iron.

In 1895, Mark Hanna left his business career to devote himself full-time to McKinley's campaign for president.

Mark Hanna paid all expenses to get McKinley the nomination the following year, although he was in any event the frontrunner.

Mark Hanna's fundraising broke records, and once initial public enthusiasm for Bryan and his program subsided, McKinley was comfortably elected.

Mark Hanna died in 1904, and is remembered for his role in McKinley's election, thanks to savage cartoons by such illustrators as Homer Davenport, who lampooned him as McKinley's political master.

Marcus Alonzo Mark Hanna was born on September 24,1837, in New Lisbon, Ohio, to Dr Leonard and Samantha Mark Hanna.

Leonard's father, Benjamin Mark Hanna, a Quaker of Scotch-Irish descent, was a wealthy store owner in New Lisbon.

Dr Mark Hanna practiced in Columbiana County, where New Lisbon was located, until he suffered a spinal injury while riding.

Young Mark Hanna attended the local public school, which conducted class in the basement of the Presbyterian church.

Mark Hanna competed in the local boys' debating society, and on the question of whether the black man had more cause for complaint than the Indian, carried the day arguing for the blacks.

Dr Mark Hanna went into partnership with his brother Robert, starting a grocery business in Cleveland, and relocated his family there in 1852.

In Cleveland, Mark attended several public schools, including Cleveland Central High School, which he went to at the same time as John D Rockefeller and was one of his classmates.

Mark Hanna served in various capacities in the family business, learning it from the bottom up.

However, Mark Hanna, who had been commissioned a second lieutenant, was absent during that time, having been sent to escort the body of a deceased soldier back to Ohio.

Mark Hanna's father Daniel Rhodes was an ardent Democrat and was distantly related to Illinois Senator Stephen A Douglas, the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for president in 1860.

Rhodes disliked the fact that Mark Hanna had supported the successful Republican candidate, former Illinois Congressman Abraham Lincoln.

Mark Hanna later became director of two railroads, including one of the Pennsylvania's leased lines.

Mark Hanna hoped that Grant, who was elected, would institute policies which would return full value to the currency.

Mark Hanna purchased Cleveland's opera house, allowing it to remain open at times when it could not pay its full rent.

In 1880, Mark Hanna added The Cleveland Herald newspaper to his business empire.

Mark Hanna, according to his biographer Croly, was in charge of the arrangements for the campaign visit of former President Grant and New York Senator Roscoe Conkling to the state.

Garfield favored civil service reform, a position disliked by Mark Hanna, who felt that public jobs should be used to reward campaign workers.

Mark Hanna did much fundraising work, roaming the state to persuade business owners to contribute to the Garfield campaign.

Mark Hanna sought no position in the Garfield administration, although Horner states that his services to the campaign entitled him to a reward, and speculates that Mark Hanna did not make any request of Garfield because of their political differences.

Foraker gained national acclaim with his speech nominating Sherman, and Mark Hanna worked for the senator's nomination, but Blaine won easily.

Mark Hanna was a major campaign adviser and fundraiser for Foraker's successful runs for governor in 1885 and 1887.

McKinley, in 1896, referred to a friendship with Mark Hanna that had lasted over twenty years; Mark Hanna, in 1903, stated after some thought that he had met McKinley before 1876.

Mark Hanna was one of the mine owners affected by subsequent unrest.

Mark Hanna financed many of the arrangements for the Sherman campaign and was widely regarded as its manager.

Mark Hanna appreciated men who stuck to a losing bargain.

Mark Hanna became convinced that McKinley was the only Ohioan who could gain the nomination, and by telegram hinted that Sherman should withdraw in the congressman's favor as the only Ohio Republican with a chance at the presidency.

Sherman, believing this to be his best chance for election, refused, a decision which Mark Hanna accepted, fighting for Sherman to the end.

Mark Hanna was greatly impressed by McKinley's loyal conduct in refusing to begin a run himself.

Foraker stated in his memoirs that the break occurred because Mark Hanna bribed black delegates from the South in 1888.

Mr Mark Hanna became thoroughly angered at what he thought was Senator Foraker's bad faith.

Harrison was elected president after a campaign in which Mark Hanna fundraised considerably, consoling himself with the thought that though Harrison was from Indiana, he had at least been born in Ohio.

Mark Hanna had come to admire McKinley; the two men shared many political views.

In choosing McKinley as the object on which to lavish his energies, Mark Hanna had not made a purely rational decision.

Cynical in his acceptance of contemporary political practices, Mark Hanna was drawn to McKinley's scruples and idealistic standards, like a hardened man of the world who becomes infatuated with virgin innocence.

In November 1889, Mark Hanna traveled to Washington to manage McKinley's campaign for Speaker of the House.

Mark Hanna traveled as far away from Ohio as New York and Iowa, soliciting funds, some of which went to McKinley, but which for the most part went to the state Republican committee.

Mark Hanna was instrumental in keeping enough Republican support to secure victory by Sherman in the Republican caucus, assuring his election by the legislature.

Mark Hanna hired detectives to find legislators who had gone into hiding and were believed to be Foraker supporters, and saw to it they supported Sherman.

President Harrison attempted to neutralize Mark Hanna, who was ill-disposed to the President and likely to oppose his renomination, by offering to make him treasurer of the Republican National Committee.

Mark Hanna declined, feeling it would make him beholden to the administration.

Mark Hanna urged me to accept and asked me to see Mr Hanna, which I did the next day.

Mark Hanna's bearing and conduct and personal magnetism won the hearts and respect of everybody.

Mark Hanna was called upon to pay over $100,000 and proposed to resign as governor and earn the money as an attorney.

Mark Hanna followed the usual Ohio custom and stepped down at the end of two two-year terms, returning home to Canton in January 1896 to municipal celebrations.

Mark Hanna was certain, as he stated as McKinley's campaign began, that "nothing short of a miracle or death will prevent his being the nominee of the party in '96".

Mark Hanna was joined there by the McKinleys in 1895, even before the governor left office, and in the winter of 1896.

When Mark Hanna returned to Canton, he informed McKinley that the bosses would guarantee his nomination in exchange for control of local patronage.

McKinley was unwilling to make such a deal, and Mark Hanna duly undertook to gain the former governor's nomination without machine support.

Mark Hanna organized, built coalitions, performed the rougher work for which McKinley had neither taste nor energy.

Mark Hanna paid for thousands of copies of McKinley's speeches to be printed and shipped quantities of McKinley posters, badges, and buttons across the nation.

Mark Hanna spent much money and effort to undercut Reed in his native New England, and on "McKinley Clubs" in Pennsylvania to force Quay to spend time and money shoring up his base.

Dawes and Mark Hanna worked closely together, with the latter relying on the young entrepreneur to secure support from his connections in the Chicago business community.

In St Louis, the bosses again tried to secure political favors in exchange for their support; with little need to deal, Mark Hanna, backed by McKinley via telephone from Canton, refused.

The convention duly nominated Hobart; Mark Hanna was elected chairman of the Republican National Committee for the next four years.

Mark Hanna's task was to raise the money; other campaign officials, such as Dawes, determined how to spend it.

The popularly accepted picture of Mark Hanna's domination was not true.

Mark Hanna raised money, hired men, established headquarters offices, bought literature, with the same drive and skill that he managed his business.

Mark Hanna was confident of his mastery of that kind of operation, but he never ceased to defer to McKinley's mastery of the grand strategy of politics.

Mark Hanna had hoped to end sectionalism, but his only successes in the "Solid South" were in the border states of Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia and Kentucky.

Mark Hanna stated that he would accept no office in the McKinley administration, as he feared it would be seen as a reward for his political efforts.

Mark Hanna had long wished to be a senator, speaking of this desire as early as 1892.

The poor record Sherman posted prior to his departure from office in 1898 led to attacks on Mark Hanna, suggesting that a senile man had been placed in a key Cabinet position to accommodate him.

Foraker, in his memoirs, strongly implied that Sherman was moved out of the way to allow Mark Hanna to have his Senate seat.

Mark Hanna exchanged two years in the Senate with a doubtful succession for apparently a four years' tenure of the Cabinet head of the new Republican administration, which was undoubtedly a promotion.

Sherman's acceptance of the post of Secretary of State did not assure Mark Hanna of succeeding him as senator.

Rhodes suggests that the difficulty over obtaining a Senate seat for Mark Hanna led McKinley to persist in his offer to make his friend Postmaster General into mid-February 1897.

Foraker, in his memoirs, stated that Mark Hanna was given the Senate seat because of McKinley's desires.

However, a number of Republicans, most of the Foraker faction, did not want to re-elect Mark Hanna and formed an alliance with the Democrats.

Senator Mark Hanna was looking for a residence; President McKinley suggested that he stay at the Executive Mansion until he found one.

Mark Hanna soon moved into the Arlington Hotel, close to the White House, where he occupied a large suite.

Mark Hanna had a voice in some of McKinley's appointments, but the President made the final decision.

Mark Hanna was allowed to recommend candidates for the majority of federal positions in Ohio and was permitted a veto over Foraker's candidates.

Mark Hanna was dominant in the South, where there were few Republican congressmen to lobby the President.

Mark Hanna wanted and needed Hanna, but on his own terms.

Mark Hanna's edict meant that Uncle Sam might be kicked and cuffed from one continent to another.

Mark Hanna, who felt Roosevelt was overly impulsive, did not want him on the ticket, but did not realize that the efforts were serious until he was already at the convention in Philadelphia.

Mark Hanna was called upon to do only small amounts of fundraising this time: no great educational campaign was required, and the corporations were willing to give.

Mark Hanna was now a public figure, and wanted to campaign for the Republicans in the western states.

McKinley was reluctant, as Mark Hanna had varied from the administration's position on trusts in a recent speech.

McKinley sent Postmaster General Charles Emory Smith to Chicago, where Mark Hanna then was, to talk him out of the trip.

Mark Hanna spent much of his time based at the campaign's New York office, while renting a seaside cottage in Elberon, New Jersey.

Mark Hanna believed that the miners' grievances were just, and he persuaded the parties to allow him to arbitrate.

Mark Hanna, weeping, went to the library in the Milburn House where the President lay, and as he awaited the end, made the necessary plans and arrangements to return his friend's remains to Canton.

Mark Hanna indicated that he was willing to come to terms with Roosevelt on two conditions: that Roosevelt carry out McKinley's political agenda, and that the President cease from his habit of calling Mark Hanna "old man", something which greatly annoyed the senator.

Mark Hanna was a supporter of building a canal across Central America to allow ships to pass between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans without making the lengthy journey around Cape Horn.

In June 1902, it was considered by the Senate, and on June 5 and 6, Mark Hanna made a speech against the Hepburn Bill.

Mark Hanna pointed out many advantages of the Panama route: it was shorter than the Nicaraguan route, would require much less digging, and had existing harbors at either end.

Mark Hanna wired Roosevelt, who was on a western trip, that he intended to oppose it and would explain all when both men were in Washington.

Mark Hanna campaigned for several weeks for the Republicans in Ohio, and was rewarded with an overwhelming Republican victory.

Mark Hanna saw this as an unsubtle attempt by the President to ensure that Mark Hanna would not oppose him, and was slow to respond to his request.

On January 30,1904, Mark Hanna attended the Gridiron Club dinner at the Arlington Hotel.

Mark Hanna became the first president of the National Civic Federation, which tried to foster harmonious relations between business and labor.

Watson, a Republican, denied that Mark Hanna had written the phrase, but refused to discuss the matter further with reporters.

Mark Hanna is often credited with the invention of the modern presidential campaign.

Bradley, a former basketball player, mentioned that when he was being interviewed in high school, he stated that Mark Hanna was one of his heroes.

Bush's advisor was deemed a present-day incarnation of Mark Hanna, who was almost invariably presented negatively and at variance with historical fact.

For example, writer Jack Kelly in a 2000 column incorrectly stated that McKinley's front porch campaign was at the direction of Mark Hanna to ensure the candidate did not vary from campaign themes, rather than McKinley deciding that it was his best response to Bryan's national tour.

The portrait of Mark Hanna that has stood the test of time is of a man who was grossly obese; a cutthroat attack dog for the "Trusts"; a cigar-smoking man clad in a suit covered with dollar signs who stood side by side with a gigantic figure representing the trusts, and a tiny, childlike William McKinley.