Mark Hanna

Marcus Alonzo Hanna (September 24, 1837 – February 15, 1904) is an American businessman and Republican politician, who served as a United States Senator from Ohio as well as chairman of the Republican National Committee.

A friend and political ally of President William McKinley, Hanna uses his wealth and business skills to successfully manage McKinley's presidential campaigns in 1896 and 1900.

Hanna was born in New Lisbon (today Lisbon), Ohio, in 1837.

His family moves to the growing city of Cleveland in his teenage years, where he attends high school with John D. Rockefeller.

He is expelled from college, and enters the family mercantile business.

He serves briefly during the American Civil War and marries Charlotte Rhodes; her father, Daniel Rhodes, takes Hanna into his business after the war.

Hanna is soon a partner in the firm, which grows to have interests in many areas, especially coal and iron.

He is a millionaire by his fortietth birthday, and turns his attention to politics.

Despite Hanna's efforts on his behalf, Ohio Senator John Sherman fails to gain the Republican nomination for president in 1884 and 1888.

With Sherman becoming too old to be considered a contender, Hanna works to elect McKinley.

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

Hanna pays all expenses to get McKinley the nomination the following year, although he is in any event the frontrunner.

The Democrats nominate former Nebraska Congressman William Jennings Bryan, who raun on a bimetallism, or "Free Silver", platform.

Hanna's fundraising breaks records, and once initial public enthusiasm for Bryan and his program subside, McKinley is comfortably elected.

Declining a Cabinet position, Hanna secures appointment as senator from Ohio after Sherman is made Secretary of State; he is re-elected by the Ohio General Assembly in 1898 and 1904.

After McKinley's assassination in 1901, Senator Hanna works for the building of a canal in Panama, rather than elsewhere in Central America, as had previously been proposed.

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

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