Republican · 1897–1901
William McKinley
Tariff and gold at home. War with Spain and overseas territory abroad.
William McKinley was president 1897–1901. The party color on the chart is Republican. Early presidents are not forced into today’s party names. The placement note is: Tariff and gold at home. War with Spain and overseas territory abroad.
The dot is economics +28 and authority +32. That is right of center on economics. The other axis sits toward authority. Color and place are allowed to disagree. Theodore Roosevelt sits left of Grover Cleveland on economics.
What was said, and what the administration did, are filed separately. Said: Prosperity through the tariff and gold. He was a reluctant imperialist on the stump. Done: The tariff and gold happened. So did the war with Spain and the Philippines. Where those two sentences pull apart, the dot follows the governing record, not the slogan.
The nearest other presidents on these two numbers are John Tyler (1841–1845, +24 / +28) and George H. W. Bush (1989–1993, +34 / +26). A small distance can join people who would have disliked each other. The chart is a compression, not a claim that they were alike.
Presidents are not placed with the Voteview roll-call score used for the current Congress. Two axes cannot carry a war, a court, a tariff, and a civil-rights record as separate facts.