When I saw him last I was convinced both of his perfect health, physically and mentally, and that the prospects of life were remarkably good."[119]
Maine Representative Nelson Dingley Jr. was McKinley's choice for Secretary of the Treasury; he declined it, preferring to remain as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Charles Dawes, who had been Hanna's lieutenant in Chicago during the campaign, was considered for the Treasury post but by some accounts Dawes considered himself too young. Dawes eventually became Comptroller of the Currency; he recorded in his published diary that he had strongly urged McKinley to appoint as secretary the successful candidate, Lyman J. Gage, president of the First National Bank of Chicago and a Gold Democrat.[120] The Navy Department was offered to former Massachusetts Congressman John Davis Long, an old friend from the House, on January 30, 1897.[121] Although McKinley was initially inclined to allow Long to choose his own assistant, there was considerable pressure on the President-elect to appoint Theodore Roosevelt, head of the New York City Police Commission and a published naval historian. 