Simpler times they were not.....................

Clearly the president wanted to bury the "bloody shirt" that had enflamed sectional passions for decades.   But he knew that unity and social harmony also required good times and a sense that American prosperity was widely shared.  He devoted elements of his Annual Message to these themes.

-Robert W. Merry,  President McKinley:  Architect of the American Century.  The year was 1897.