Hanna, Mark

Hanna, (Marcus Alonzo) Mark

(1837–1904) businessman, U.S. senator; born in New Lisbon, Ohio. He prospered in the grocery business, coal mining, the iron industry, and shipping and also acquired the Cleveland Herald before embarking on a career in politics. After getting his friend William McKinley elected governor of Ohio (1892–96) he engineered McKinley's nomination as the Republican candidate for president in 1896 and then managed his victory in the most expensive and best organized campaign ever seen until then. As chairman of the Republican National Committee (1897) he got himself appointed to the U.S. Senate (Rep., Ohio; 1897–1904). In his first years he devoted most of his energies to promoting his party's goals, but when Theodore Roosevelt succeeded to the presidency in 1901, Hanna took on a surprisingly more statesmanlike, if still conservative role; he admittedly endorsed "standpattism" but he also supported the right of labor to organize unions.