Mark Hanna - Views and Legacy

Views and Legacy

According to Professor Gerald W. Wolff, "the one solid absolute in life was a profound belief in the living standard capitalism had brought to America." Hanna believed, like many conservative businessmen of his time, that labor, business, and government should work together cooperatively for the benefit of society. These views, which had coalesced in Hanna by the 1876 coal strike, informed his political views once he turned to that field. According to Croly, Hanna always did his best to foster good relations with his workers; the biographer proffered in support of his statement a quote from the Cleveland Leader of April 28, 1876: "This morning Mr. Hanna, of Rhodes & Co., met the striking laborers on the docks at Ashtabula Harbor, and after consultation the men accepted the terms offered and resumed work." According to Wolff, after the coal strike, Hanna "tried diligently to show by example how relations between labor, capital, and management could be ordered for the benefit of all".

Despite his efforts at harmonious worker relations, Hanna was often depicted by Davenport during the 1896 campaign with his foot on a skull labeled "Labor". During the following year's Ohio legislative elections, which determined Hanna's electors for his 1898 re-election bid, he was accused of being harsh to his employees. He responded in a speech,

Go to any of the five thousand men in my employ ... Ask them whether I ever pay less than the highest going wages, ask them whether I ever asked them whether they belonged to a union or not ... Ask them whether, when any men or any committee of men, came to me with a complaint if I ever refused to see them ... Ask them if I ever in my life intentionally wronged any workingman. I never did.

After Hanna issued the challenge, unions representing his workers confirmed his statement. Hanna became the first president of the National Civic Federation (NCF), which tried to foster harmonious relations between business and labor. The NCF opposed militant labor unions; it also resisted businessmen who sought to entirely prevent regulation. It recognized labor's right to organize to seek better wages and conditions. In a 1903 speech to a labor convention, Hanna stated that the efforts of labor to organize into unions should be considered no more shocking than those of businesses organizing into trade groups.

A phrase sometimes attributed to Hanna is: "No man in public office owes the public anything". This phrase supposedly appeared in a letter by Hanna to Ohio Attorney General David K. Watson in 1890, urging him to drop a lawsuit against the Standard Oil Company. The phrase became an issue against Hanna in the 1897 campaign in Ohio. Watson, a Republican, denied that Hanna had written the phrase, but refused to discuss the matter further with reporters. Hanna's early biographers, Croly and Beer, found the supposed quote dubious but as they did not definitely deny that Hanna had written it, a number of later works attribute the quote to Hanna. However, Professor Thomas E. Felt, who wrote an article about the controversy, believed Hanna unlikely to use such an inflammatory phrase to a man with whom he was not close, and which, in any event, did not accurately represent his political views.

Hanna is often credited with the invention of the modern presidential campaign. His campaign for McKinley in 1896 broke new ground because of its highly systematized and centralized nature, as well as for its fundraising success. Although Hanna has been depicted as the first national political boss, historians agree that McKinley dominated the relationship between the two. Nevertheless, Hanna is recognized for his innovative campaign work.