Senator Lodge and other Republicans violently attacked his policy as procrastinating, and the nation as a whole looked forward with interest to the approaching change in administration.
William McKinley, who became President on March 4, 1897, was not actively interested in foreign affairs.

This he illustrated in a striking way by appointing as Secretary of State John Sherman of Ohio, a man of undoubtedly high ability but one whose whole reputation rested upon his financial leadership, and who now, at the age of seventy-four, was known to be incapacitated for vigorous action.

To the very moment of crisis, McKinley was opposed to a war with Spain; he was opposed to the form of the declaration of war and he was opposed to the terms of peace which ended the war.

Emphatically not a leader, he was, however, unsurpassed in his day as a reader of public opinion, and he believed his function to be that of interpreting the national mind.

Nor did he yield his opinion in a grudging manner.