 To devote himself full @-@ time to McKinley 's presidential campaign , Hanna in 1895 turned over management of his companies to his brother Leonard , and rented a house in Thomasville , Georgia , expressing a dislike for Cleveland 's winters . He was joined there by William and Ida McKinley in early 1895 . The location was a plausibly nonpolitical vacation spot for McKinley , and also permitted him to meet many southern Republicans , including blacks . Although southern Republicans rarely had local electoral success , they elected a substantial number of delegates to the national convention . McKinley and Hanna hosted many southern Republican leaders in Thomasville , subsidizing those who did not have the money to come , and made many converts . The governor also traveled in the South ; in Savannah at the end of March 1895 , he became the first presidential hopeful in American history to address an audience of blacks when he spoke at an African American church . By the time he left Thomasville , he had gained the support of the majority of likely southern delegates ; Platt wrote mournfully in his autobiography that Hanna " had the South practically solid before some of us awakened " . 
