Opposition.......................

......................................and the ability of one man to bring about a sea change in the fate of a country.   Ah, history, the lessons you offer.

     These men were not alone.  In transforming America from a contained land power into a global empire, McKinley had stirred a robust opposition movement that included former presidents Harrison and Cleveland, current prominent politicians William Jennings Bryan and George Hoar, reform-minded thinkers such as Edwin Godkin and Samuel Francis Adams, college presidents and academics, labor leaders, prominent clergymen, and famous writers Twain, William Dean Howells, Edgar Lee Masters, and Ambrose Bierce.  "It would be no mean task," writes historian Robert L, Beisner, "to think of another issue that has united such a collection of Democrats and Republicans, progressives and conservatives, party stalwarts and independents, businessmen and labor-union leaders.

-Robert W. Merry,  President McKinley:  Architect of the American Century