Mark Hanna

For more information on Mark Hanna, visit Britannica.com.

(b. New Lisbon, Ohio, 24 Sept. 1837; d. 15 Feb. 1904) US; US Senator 1897 – 1904 The son of a doctor who became a wholesale grocery merchant, Hanna attended local schools in Cleveland, Ohio, where his family lived from 1852, and Western Reserve College, Hudson, Ohio. In 1858 he entered a copper and iron ore firm, a subsidiary of his father's business, and rapidly worked his way up from labourer in the warehouse, to bookkeeper, salesman, and purser on one of the firm's ships. After his father's death, in 1862, he became a partner in the business with his uncle. He continued to manage the firm, with an interlude of 100 days devoted to defending Washington during the Civil War, until 1867, when he sold his share and entered a business association with his father-in-law. Thereafter he turned his hand successfully to a wide range of business ventures including: copper; blast furnaces; street railways; shipping; banking and publishing.

Hanna's interest in business was complemented by an interest in Republican party politics. He was one of the new breed of party bosses to emerge after the 1883 Civil Service Reform Act curbed patronage as a source of revenue and prompted politicians to turned increasingly to big business for money and support. He played an active part in every political campaign from 1867 until his death. Between 1888 and 1900 he was de facto Republican "king-maker" managing Senator John Sherman's successful bid for the party's presidential nomination in 1888, William McKinley's in 1892, and persuaded the party to nominate McKinley on the first ballot at the 1896 national convention. Selected as chairman of the Republican national committee in 1896, he became a key figure in national politics. McKinley's victory over William Jennings Bryan, the choice of both the Populists and the Democrats, in the election that year is widely attributed to Hanna's fund-raising and skills of political management.

A year later, in 1897, Hanna became US Senator for Ohio, appointed to complete a year's unexpired term of John Sherman who had accepted a post in McKinley's Cabinet. The following year he won a full term in the Senate after a contested election in the state legislature, and was re-elected for a further term but died before taking his seat. During his time in the Senate he remained a dominant figure in his party and an influential adviser to McKinley and then Theodore Roosevelt.

Businessman, politician, and U.S. senator, Marcus Alonzo Hanna (1837-1904) managed the election of President William McKinley and was a leading spokesman for enlightened capitalism.

Mark Hanna was born on Sept. 24, 1837, in New Lisbon (now Lisbon), Ohio. His parents were well educated. Young Hanna enjoyed material comfort and relative social privilege. When the family moved to Cleveland in 1852, he completed public school and attended Western Reserve College briefly.

Business permeated Hanna's youthful environment and immediately absorbed his energies. He became a full partner in the family grocery firm after his father's death in 1862. Following his marriage in 1864, he launched ventures in lake transportation and oil refining, areas of enterprise that were also attracting his Cleveland schoolmate John D. Rockefeller. Hanna later joined his father-in-law in a large iron and coal firm.

Politics, a vigorous Ohio tradition, early engaged Hanna's attention, and he embraced the Republican party instinctively. To his father-in-law, a fervent Democrat, he seemed "a damned screecher for freedom." In reality, despite this appearance and later skirmishes with Cleveland's ward bosses in the 1870s, Hanna was no reformer, but he realized that business and politics were becoming increasingly related. He lent his organizational talents and money to the Ohio Republicans who sought the presidency between 1880 and 1900: James A. Garfield, John Sherman, and William McKinley. He helped elect McKinley governor of Ohio in 1891 and president in 1896 and 1900. His management of the McKinley campaigns marked the successful application of business skills to American politics. Between 1897 and his death Hanna served in the Senate. He was a trusted presidential adviser to McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, despite his opposition to many of the latter's policies.

Although labeled "dollar Mark" by opponents, Hanna was no mere moneygrubber. The gold standard, high tariff, and large corporations - all of which he defended - seemed means to ensure general prosperity by stabilizing capitalism. For similar reasons he defended labor's right to organize and strike. After 1900 he championed ship subsidies and an Isthmian canal to increase America's power through international trade.

Although Hanna introduced the phrase "stand pat" into the American vocabulary, his dream of domestic and international order through responsible capitalism was not a formula for do-nothingism. His instinctive idealism and his concern for the public weal represented the best of American Whig attitudes. Unfortunately for his reputation, he became, even before his death, a symbol of many reactionary business attitudes that he had personally condemned.

Further Reading

Herbert D. Croly, Marcus Alonzo Hanna (1912), the standard biography, is sometimes overly sympathetic. Thomas Beer, Hanna (1929), is a bright, cynical study by the son of one of Hanna's associates. H. Wayne Morgan, William McKinley and His America (1963), describes Hanna's role with balanced sympathy.

(1837-1904), U.S. senator; the greatest of the businessmen-in-politics who rose to power hand in hand with machine politicians in late- nineteenth-century America. Mark Hanna was a representative figure as well as a prime mover. His ancestry, region, occupation, and lifestyle put him solidly within the cultural core of Republicanism, thus preparing him to play a pivotal role in the turn-of-the-century transformation of the gop.

There was nothing up-from-the-bottom about Hanna the businessman. His was a family steeped in entrepreneurship. Investment reverses and a declining local economy drove the Hannas from New Lisbon, Ohio, to Cleveland in the 1850s, and it was in that city that he established his business and began his political careers. He married the daughter of Cleveland's leading coal and iron merchant, and his talent and connections enabled him to make M. A. Hanna and Company one of the city's leading enterprises.

From the early 1880s on, Hanna had the money and the time to devote himself to politics. He was strategically located to do so, for Ohio in those years was the party's keystone state. The presidential aspirants to whom Hanna attached himself--James A. Garfield in 1880, John Sherman in 1884 and 1888, William McKinley thereafter--were Ohio politicians.

At first Hanna contented himself with money raising and campaign managing. In this he followed in the footsteps of other businessmen turned president-makers such as the Republican Stephen B. Elkins, who managed James G. Blaine's 1884 campaign, or the Democrat William C. Whitney, who served Grover Cleveland. But the campaign of 1896--that emblematic confrontation between the new world of corporate wealth and urban middle-class America, on the one hand, and rural discontent in the South and West, on the other--forced Hanna (as well as American politics at large) into a new mold. He became the Republican national chairman after McKinley won the nomination and ran the most highly centralized, ideological, abundantly financed (in great part by corporations) campaign to that time.

Hanna's money and power--and his exceptional personal and managerial skills--won him the U.S. senatorship from Ohio in 1897. He had no taste for large policy, though he did show an interest in conservation and a distaste for the primitive anti-unionism of many of his business peers. But the same qualities of intelligence and personality that made him successful in business and gop politics thrust him into the leadership of the Senate. At the same time, for much of the country he was "Dollar Mark" (as the Hearst political cartoonist Homer Davenport so devastatingly portrayed him)--the prototype of plutocracy turned to politics. In fact he was neither ogre nor kindly paternalist but one of those uninhibitedly strong and self-confident men of affairs who strode across the American business and political scene around the turn of the century: embodiments of a newly imperial nation. The question of where Hanna might eventually have wound up--in the White House? in disgrace?--became moot with his death in 1904.

Bibliography:

Thomas Beer, Hanna, Crane, and the Mauve Decade (1941); Herbert D. Croly, Marcus Alonzo Hanna: His Life and Work (1912).

Author:

Morton Keller

See also Elections: 1896; McKinley, William.

"Marcus Hanna" redirects here. For the Medal of Honor recipient and lighthouse keeper, see Marcus Hanna (lighthouse keeper).

For the film screenwriter and actor, see Mark Hanna (screenwriter).

Marcus A. Hanna
United States Senator from Ohio
In office March 4, 1897 – February 15, 1904
Preceded by	John Sherman
Succeeded by	Charles W. F. Dick
14th Chair of the Republican National Committee
In office 1896 – 1904
Preceded by	Thomas H. Carter
Succeeded by	Henry Clay Payne
Born	September 24, 1837(1837-09-24) Lisbon (formerly New Lisbon), Ohio
Died	February 15, 1904 (aged 66) Washington, D.C.
Political party	Republican
Military service
Service/branch	Union Army
Unit	Quartermaster Corps
Battles/wars	American Civil War

Marcus Alonzo Hanna (September 24, 1837 – February 15, 1904), best known as Mark Hanna, was an American industrialist and Republican politician from Cleveland, Ohio. He rose to fame as the campaign manager of the successful Republican Presidential candidate, William McKinley, in the U.S. Presidential election of 1896 in a well-funded political campaign and subsequently became one of the most powerful members of the U.S. Senate.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Manager of campaigns 3 Election to U.S. Senate 4 Hanna and Roosevelt 5 Death and legacy 6 Further reading 7 References

Early life

In 1844, Hanna's family moved to Cleveland, Ohio. He attended the Cleveland Central High School, where he befriended the young John D. Rockefeller,^[1] and subsequently enrolled in Western Reserve College and Preparatory School, though he did not complete his studies.^[2] After working for his father's grocery business, the young Hanna became involved in numerous unsuccessful business ventures. He served as a quartermaster in the United States Army during the Civil War and was always close to veterans' organizations. (It is not true that he was awarded the Medal of Honor -- that was an unrelated Marcus Hanna.) After 1867, he became rich as a shipper and broker serving the coal and iron industries. Cleveland was emerging as a major transshipping point between the Great Lakes ore deposits and the mills of eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, and Hanna loved making deals and bargains on a daily basis over a wide range of products and services. He was one of the few industrialists fascinated less by profits than by the outdoor spectacle and indoor bargaining of politics.^[3][4]

Hanna was a longtime member of St. John's Episcopal Church in Cleveland, Ohio.

Manager of campaigns

Hanna made a transition into politics during the 1880s, and in 1888, he managed Ohio Senator John Sherman's unsuccessful effort to gain the Republican presidential nomination. Rep. William McKinley had tried unsuccessfully to win the position of Speaker of the House in 1891, losing to Rep. Thomas B. Reed of Maine, who was backed by Theodore Roosevelt. McKinley then turned his attentions to running for governor of Ohio. Hanna helped McKinley win the 1891 and 1893 elections for governor and became his chief advisor.

McKinley's strongest competitor for the Republican nomination in 1896 was Speaker Reed. After Hanna attended a speech Reed gave in Washington, he realized that Reed lacked the presidential appearance or stature McKinley possessed. After McKinley won the 1896 Republican nomination for president, Hanna, as chairman of the Republican National Committee, raised an unprecedented $3.5 million for McKinley's campaign, in which he ran on the gold standard, high tariffs, pluralism, and renewed prosperity. Most of the money came from corporations who feared that William Jennings Bryan's Free Silver policy would limit their economic power. By October the Democrats realized they were losing the battle for campaign funding and targeted Hanna as the arch-villain who threatened to put corporate interests ahead of the national interest.^[5] As McKinley was highly likeable, Hanna became a target of Bryan's supporters, especially William Randolph Hearst and his New York Journal.

Hanna's campaign employed 1400 people, who concentrated a flood of pamphlets, leaflets, posters, and stump speakers. McKinley defeated Bryan by an electoral vote of 271 to 176. At the time, it was the most expensive campaign ever in U.S. politics, with the McKinley campaign outspending Bryan's by nearly 12 to 1. Today it is considered the forerunner of the modern political campaign for its adroit use of publicity, its overall national plan, its strategic use of issues, and especially the candidate's own speech making.

Election to U.S. Senate

1896 Davenport cartoon of Mark Hanna as slave driver, from William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal

Once elected, McKinley appointed Senator John Sherman to his Cabinet as Secretary of State, and Hanna was elected by the Ohio legislature in March 1897 to fill the remainder of that term. The aging Sherman's lack of diplomatic experience caused many opponents of the administration to accuse McKinley of forcing Sherman out of his Senate seat to placate Hanna, indicating the executive's subservience to the whims of finance. In fact, McKinley had offered the position to Iowa senator William Allison, who turned him down, and selected Sherman to add prestige to an otherwise undistinguished cabinet. The incoming president had initially offered Hanna the office of postmaster general, an honorific position usually awarded to party leaders.

Hanna aligned himself with the most conservative senators in the Republican Party and rarely spoke on the record in Congress. The high rates of the 1897 Dingley Tariff coupled with Hanna's divisive public persona engendered a strong anti-Hanna coalition to rise in Ohio during the 1897 elections. A brutal campaign that many saw as a validation of McKinley's first six months in office left Hanna victorious, but the wide Republican majorities of the 1896 election had dissipated.

Hanna deplored the rising clamor for a war with Spain in 1898, believing the conflict would hinder economic recovery. In constant consultation with McKinley, Hanna labored to rally support for the administration's diplomatic negotiations with Spain in the Senate. Fearing the Democrats would exploit a lack of action in the November midterm elections, Hanna joined McKinley and most of his conservative supporters in the Republican Party in assenting to war.

As the economy recovered and international triumphs against Spain bolstered McKinley's popularity, the 1900 rematch was an easy victory for Hanna. Taking his place in the Senate, he came out from McKinley's shadow and played an influential role in terms of selecting the Panama route for a canal. Hanna worked as a conciliator with the National Civic Federation in labor conflicts. He succeeded in attracting some labor unions into the Republican fold and avoiding some major strikes.

Hanna and Roosevelt

Hanna and Theodore Roosevelt had been allies when they met in 1884, but they became rivals, initially due to their disagreement about the Spanish-American War. Roosevelt strongly favored war with Spain; Hanna resisted war until public opinion demanded it. In 1900, New York politicians wanted Governor Roosevelt to become vice president. He reportedly told some who spoke out in favor of Roosevelt becoming vice-president "Don't any of you realize there's only one life between that madman and the presidency?". Hanna, however, lacked the political power to stop it. Once one of the leading powers in the conservative faction of the Republican party, Hanna lost influence when McKinley was assassinated and replaced by Roosevelt. Upon hearing the news, Hanna reputedly remarked that "Now that damn cowboy is president." Hanna and Roosevelt worked together (particularly on the Panama Canal), and although they remained personally cordial, they considered each other political rivals.

Death and legacy

Hanna was expected to run against Roosevelt for the Republican nomination for president in the 1904 election. The rivalry was cut short by Hanna's death of typhoid fever, at the peak of his power, in February of that year. Hanna is buried in Cleveland's Lakeview Cemetery.

Famed for the quote; "There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money and I can't remember the second".

The Hanna Building on the corner of Euclid Avenue and East 14th Street in Cleveland bears his name.

The small community of Hanna, South Dakota bears his name.

His portrait was painted by the Swedish artist Anders Zorn, and in 1902/3 by the Swiss-born American artist Adolfo Müller-Ury (1862-1947); the latter now belongs to the Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland Ohio.

Hanna was the father of Ruth Hanna McCormick, who married a U.S. Representative and Senator, and herself served in the United States House of Representatives.

Karl Rove's relationship with George W. Bush is often compared with Hanna's relationship with McKinley, and frequently it is reported that Rove is an admirer and student of Hanna's career.^[6] Rove has, however, denied this in interviews.^[7]

Further reading

• Thomas Beer. Hanna (New York, 1929), biography
• Herbert Croly Marcus Alonzo Hanna: His Life and Work (New York, 1912), biography
• James Ford Rhodes. The McKinley and Roosevelt Administrations, 1897-1909 (1922), Rhodes was Hanna's brother-in-law

References

1. ^ Richard F. Hamilton (2006). President Mckinley, War And Empire. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publ.. pp. 54. ISBN 0765803291. 
2. ^ "Marcus Alonzo Hanna". Ohio History Central. http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=200. 
3. ^ McKinley and Hanna
4. ^ The American Experience: Mark Hanna
5. ^ "A wealthy industrialist, Hanna [...] believed that government existed primarily to help business. He once told the Ohio attorney general, who sued to dissolve Standard Oil, to drop the suit. 'Come on,' Hanna pronounced, 'you've been in politics long enough to know that no man in public life owes the public anything." Linking Rings: William W. Durbin and the Magic and Mystery of America, James D. Robenalt, Kent State University Press, Ohio, pp. 11-12
6. ^ for example, "Billionaires for Bush". The Nation. July 21, 2003. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030721/editors. Retrieved 2008-02-26. "It's not for nothing that Karl Rove describes Mark Hanna as his political hero.". 
7. ^ "I'm not at all like Hanna. Never wanted to be." as quoted in Suskind, Ron (January 2003). "Why Are These Men Laughing?". Esquire. http://www.ronsuskind.com/newsite/articles/archives/000032.html. Retrieved 2008-02-26. 

United States Senate
Preceded by John Sherman	United States Senator (Class 1) from Ohio 1897 –1904 Served alongside: Joseph B. Foraker	Succeeded by Charles W. F. Dick
Party political offices
Preceded by Thomas H. Carter	Chairman of the Republican National Committee 1896 – 1904	Succeeded by Henry Clay Payne

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Persondata
NAME	Hanna, Mark
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Union Army officer
DATE OF BIRTH	September 24, 1837
PLACE OF BIRTH	Lisbon (formerly New Lisbon), Ohio
DATE OF DEATH	February 15, 1904
PLACE OF DEATH	Washington, D.C.

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