Published in the Sept. 16-29, 2015 issue of Morgan Hill Life
Marty Cheek, publisher Morgan Hill Life
Photo courtesy Courtney Art Studio
William McKinley, after whom Mount McKinley is, or was, named.
Leave it to Congress to make a mountain of a molehill out of a mountain. The politicians representing the great state of Ohio are outraged, simply outraged, with President Barack Obama announcing last month that he would be changing (or “restoring” depending on how you look at it) the name Mount McKinley to the mountain’s original moniker of Denali.
President William McKinley hailed from Ohio, and so many Ohio politicians took personal affront at Obama’s federal renaming action in August. The president aroused the fighting spirit of the Buckeye State for his audacity to take away the honor of having North America’s highest mountain peak, at 20,237 feet above sea level, named for the 25th American president.
Speaker of the House John Boehner, an Ohio native, said he was “deeply disappointed” by the president’s decision, proclaiming McKinley’s service to America as a Civil War soldier, as well as governor of Ohio, honors worthy to have the highest peak in North America named after McKinley.
“There is a reason President McKinley’s name has served atop the highest peak in North America for more than 100 years, and that is because it is a testament to his great legacy,” Boehner said of the Republican president.
Unfortunately for Boehner’s argument, McKinley has been ranked by historians as an average president with a mediocre legacy. A tiny minority of Americans might be able to recall from high school history class his assassination at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York in 1901, ushering in the modern era of Theodore Roosevelt. Few Americans, let alone Ohioans, might know anything of McKinley’s presiding during the Spanish-American War, raising protective tariffs to encourage American industry, and maintaining the gold standard.
I have a hunch part of the problem for Ohio’s politicians is a case of mountain envy. They see the majesty of Denali, and it makes Campbell Hill, Ohio’s highest elevated point (at 1,550 feet above sea level, or a prominence of 639 feet), seem downright wimpy. Ohio politicians have nixed suggestions of renaming Campbell Hill to “Mount McKinley.” Apparently, they have to go 3,000 miles away to a state McKinley never set foot in to find a peak worthy of honoring their favorite U.S. president.
Ohio has not slacked in manufacturing men for the White House. Eight of our Commanders in Chief were elected from the state, giving Ohio the nickname of “the Mother of Presidents.” Besides McKinley, the team includes William Henry Harrison, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, William H. Taft and Warren G. Harding. No doubt what Ohio might lack in quality in its presidential production, it more than makes up in quantity.
It was mean of me to say that of Ohio. So, in a spirit of good will, I offer an olive-branch solution, one which lies right here in Morgan Hill. We happen to have a mountain west of our downtown known as El Toro. It is a prominent prominence that some people have mistakenly taken to be a volcano because of its conical shape. The mountain has also been called Murphy’s Peak after a pioneering family who settled here around the time of the Gold Rush.
My proposal to put an end to the Denali dispute is to rename El Toro as “Mount McKinley.” El Toro stands 1,427 feet above sea level, with a prominence of 1,077 feet. You might argue its grandeur is not quite up to par compared with the snow-peaked Denali. But the good people of Ohio can rest assured that, if we do perform this name change, there will still be a geologic point in the United States to bring glory to their favorite son’s name. And McKinley did visit Santa Clara County, giving a speech in San Jose’s St. James Park four months before his assassination.
What does Morgan Hill get out of this plan? The cha-ching of cash registers. Hundreds of thousands of tourists annually will most assuredly travel to our city from around the nation and across the world to see for themselves the wondrous mountain that brought a truce between Ohio and Alaska and peace to the nation during the infamous Denali-Mount McKinley Debate of 2015. These visitors will spend their money in our restaurants and shops. Who knows how many thousands of hats, T-shirts, coffee mugs and other souvenirs will be sold incorporating the Morgan Hill Mount McKinley’s image on them.
I saw Morgan Hill Mayor Steve Tate at Trader Joe’s the other day and told him about my El Toro-Mount McKinley name-switch proposal. He said it was “a stupid idea.” His remark does not discourage me. That’s what people told U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward for his idea of purchasing from Russia the territory of Alaska in 1867 for the low-low price of $7 million. “Seward’s folly,” and “Seward’s icebox” they cynically called the deal.
The politicians of that time, as many do in ours, lacked vision for the future. Alaska contained riches in gold and other mineral resources far beyond the original purchase price. And it also contained the rugged grandeur of natural treasures, including one mountain beloved by the people of Alaska that they call by the name Denali — and hope the rest of the nation will, too.
