The wizard of POLS
The senator whose bold populism might have led to President Trump should never be forgotten
LISBON, Ohio — Marcus Alonzo Hanna was born and raised in this quaint Columbiana County village. From a small-town upbringing he became one of America’s most influential men during one of its most critical political junctures — by shrewdly guiding William McKinley to the presidency of the United States.
His guidance changed the course of American politics, forever.
Yet, despite his outsized impact in the 1896 election between McKinley and William Jennings Bryan, his wildly successful career as a businessman, his powerful reach as a US senator, and even the street signs at the edges of town reminding people this was his birthplace — despite
all of that — most people in Lisbon don’t have a clue who Hanna was.
Barber Brian Davis admits he is stumped as to how Hanna impacted Lisbon’s history, “but I am totally aware of his name.” As he waits for his next customer to arrive for a 10 o’clock haircut, he asks: “Did he found the town?”
Davis, 39, stands by one of three vintage barber chairs; behind him is a wall lined with mirrors and newspaper clip- pings celebrating the town’s 1995 Division V State Championship-winning football team. For many in Lisbon, a local football victory more than 20 years ago is the history they care most about. “It was the only championship in that sport ever to be held by a Columbiana County school,” Davis says proudly.
Small moments, like winning a school championship, are what bring small towns to life, the little events that most people don’t consider newsworthy in our hard-charging, technologydriven, metropolis-centered world. This is nothing new; it’s always been that way. But lot of important ideas and innovators, too, come from places like this, and they tend to be forgotten over time — even by the people who live in the towns where history happened.
“It worries me that . . . ‘being famous’ is more important in our culture than accomplishments,” Davis admits.
During the election of 1896, Hanna was one of the most famous people in the country. As he ran America’s first true populist campaign, the press regularly depicted him as McKinley’s puppetmaster.
The nation was in the midst of an industrial revolution that was changing the American landscape; economic disruption led to financial despair or ruin, causing societal stress and wholesale transformation.
Hanna shrewdly took the presidential campaign to a whole new level. While Democrat Bryan, a gifted orator and
Small US towns often were, sometimes still are, the incubators of greatness.
populist, traveled the country giving barn-burner speeches, Hanna kept Republican McKinley at home — on his porch, to be specific.
Why? Well, to quote a letter he wrote to McKinley, when the former governor and congressman asked why Hanna insisted on keeping him off the campaign trail, Hanna replied bluntly: “You are an awful speaker.”
Hanna set about raising millions of dollars in order to saturate the country with pamphlets and surrogate speakers, to sell the idea of a McKinley presidency. Next, he invited thousands of representatives of key constituencies to McKinley’s front porch, to spend a few moments in personal conversation with the candidate.
With such innovative tactics, Hanna beat back Bryan and won the election for McKinley.
Historians believe the unusual populist-driven election so captivated author L. Frank Baum that he penned “The Wizard of Oz” as an allegorical tale, colorfully and critically chronicling the issues on which that boisterous political moment was based.
Hanna, of course, was portrayed as the Wizard, standing behind the political curtain and manipulating the Land of Oz, better known as Washington, DC.
When Gene Krotky —“that’s G-en-e, spelled like a man’s name” — grew up here, she paid little attention to the historic figures who preceded her. That all changed, until “my children started to get older.”
Today, she runs the Lisbon Historical Society, headquartered in an old wooden train station that sat vacant for decades along a onetime canal. The station was scheduled to be torn down, but she recognized its potential value to remind townsfolk of their history and to attract tourists.
After a lot of anguish but even more cooperation, it became the center of the historical society, bought for $1, moved to a new location in 1986 and then refurbished to its former glory.
The society’s members also painstakingly amassed McKinley and Hanna artifacts into a lovely collection for display.
Lisbon wasn’t just the boyhood home of Hanna, you see. McKinley’s maternal and paternal grandparents lived here, as did his parents, and he spent summers growing up on Lisbon’s then-dusty streets.
“The rich history that comes from the people who came from small towns across America is being lost,” Krotky says, and the people who think such history is valuable enough to be preserved “are also becoming extinct.”
Hanna created a president, she explains: “He was brilliant, and the proof of his impact is to look at the structure of every modern-day campaign. That should not be forgotten.
“Without McKinley there would have been no Teddy Roosevelt. Now, I want you to think about that for a moment.”
Maybe there wouldn’t even have been a President Trump.
Small American towns often were, sometimes still are, the incubators of the nation’s greatness. Remembering that fact, and the people who made it so, is enough to make any American today feel great again.