McKinley with Fantasy Treaty of Annexation
Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii
Hawaii became a territory of the U.S. during the presidency of William McKinley. Ten years after his assassination, a heroic-sized bronze statue of the dead President, sculpted by local artist Curzon Usborne, was unveiled in front of Honolulu's McKinley High School. In his right hand he holds a scroll; on it is inscribed, "Treaty of Annexation."
Those three words have made the McKinley statue the most hated in all Hawaii -- a place where statues are often draped with friendly leis of flowers.
Foes of the statue say that the "treaty" was bogus, a diplomatic fraud between the McKinley administration and a sham Hawaiian republic that was just a front for the American sugar industry. Protests have taken place on the lawn in front of the statue, filling it with signs demanding Hawaiian independence that face McKinley, his bronze eyes unable to turn away from the truth.
McKinley himself may have been an unrepentant imperialist, but that's no reason to take it out on his poor statue, which is actually one of the better representations of his doughy presidential physique.