US President-elect Donald Trump said on Sunday (19) that he will rename the highest mountain in North America in honor of William McKinley, the 25th president of the US who was assassinated in 1901, currently called Denali by natives.
Former Democratic President Barack Obama officially renamed the mountain Denali in 2015, siding with the state of Alaska and ending a decades-long battle over the naming. The peak had been officially called Mount McKinley since 1917.
“They took his name from Mount McKinley,” Trump exclaimed in a speech to supporters in Phoenix. “He was a great president”, reinforced the Republican, adding that his administration “will bring back the name of Mount McKinley because I think he deserves it”.
McKinley was the 25th President of the United States, prior to which he served two terms as Governor of Ohio before rising to the Presidency in 1897, his tenure led the country to victory in the Spanish-American War and increased protective tariffs to promote US industry.
His second term came to a tragic end in September 1901.
He was in line for the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo when he was shot twice in an attack, dying eight days later.
The mountain, which stands at a height of more than 6,100 meters, was named Mount McKinley in 1896 after a prospector exploring the region heard that the politician had won the Republican nomination for president.
The U.S. Department of the Interior, in the 2015 order signed by Obama changing the name to Denali, noted that McKinley had never visited the mountain and had no “significant historical connection to the mountain or to Alaska.”
Denali, the local Athabascan name meaning “the High One,” was officially designated as the peak’s name in 1975 by the state of Alaska, which then pressured the federal government to also adopt the nomenclature.
Who was William McKinley
According to the White House, McKinley was born in Niles, Ohio, in 1843. William McKinley briefly attended Allegheny College and was teaching at a rural school when the Civil War began.
Enlisting as a private in the Union Army, he was mustered out at the end of the war as a brevet major of volunteers. He then studied law, opened an office in Canton, Ohio, and married Ida Saxton, daughter of a local banker.
At age 34, McKinley won a seat in Congress.
His personality, character and intelligence allowed him to rise quickly, eventually being appointed to the Ways and Means Committee.
Robert M. La Follette, Sr., who served with him, recalled that the former president generally “represented the newest view” and “on the great new issues, was generally on the side of the public and against private interests.”
During his 14 years in the House, he became the leading Republican expert on tariffs, giving his name to the measure enacted in 1890. The following year, he was elected governor of Ohio, serving two terms.
When McKinley became president, the depression of 1893 was almost over and with it the silver unrest.
Postponing action on the money issue, he called Congress into a special session to enact the highest tariff in history.
In the atmosphere of the McKinley Administration, industrial combinations developed at an unprecedented pace.
The newspapers caricatured the then president as a little boy led by “Nursie” Hanna, the trust representative.
However, McKinley was not subdued and condemned trusts as “dangerous conspiracies against the public good.”
*With information from the White House
This content was originally published in Find out who William McKinley was mentioned by Trump in his inauguration speech on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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