There are two possible reasons this spirited song did not appear in Ives' self-published collection of 114 Songs in 1922. One is that the song had already been published—it was, in fact, Ives' first published work. The other is that by 1921, when he was putting together the collection, Ives' political viewpoints had changed drastically. It was at that time that he wrote his other most explicitly political song, An Election, in which he protested in the bitterest terms his disappointment over the victory of Republican candidate Warren G. Harding, which meant the failure of Vice-President Cox, the Democratic candidate, to continue President Woodrow Wilson's policies, particularly as regarded a League of Nations.

But in 1896, 21-year-old Charlie Ives was still close to the politics of his family of Connecticut businessmen, not to mention their legacy of Republicanism that was an outgrowth of their anti-slavery position before the Civil War. Together with a writer living in his hometown of Danbury, Susan Benedict Hill, he wrote this campaign song that was published and sung widely during the campaign.

The name of the eventually victorious Republican candidate was William McKinley. The main campaign issue was the monetary basis of the country. McKinley's candidate, William Jennings Bryan, advocated free coinage of silver—that is, not tying the value of silver coins to the price of gold. (One of his rhetorical outbursts on the subject is one of the most famous lines of all American political campaign speeches: "You shall not crucify Mankind on a Cross of Gold!").

McKinley's position was the "free silver" was inflationary and would result in an inflation resulting in a lowering of the real value of collected tariffs (the main source of Federal revenue in those pre-income tax days) and of the actual income of workingmen.

"So hurrah for Will McKinley and his [tariff] Bill! And stand for Honest Money, William will!" goes Mrs. Hill's chorus in the line that gives the song its title.

In form the song is rather long. It comprises four verses and a chorus, with an instrumental interlude that Ives lifted from his earlier composition March No. 3, Kv 3 (1892). The whole song, not just the march interlude, is in a perky march, mostly in Sousa-esque dotted sixteenths.

John Kirkpatrick, in his edition of the song, cautions that it would be anachronistic to yield to the temptation to "swing" these rhythms. Kirkpatrick also advises, rightly, to ignore Ives' repeat signs in the march interlude, as repeats would only highlight the naïveté of Ives' use of rising sequences (i.e., a short bit of music that keeps repeating while hoisting itself up the scale).

As a song deliberately crafted to be not only popular but to convince, William Will is forthright and highly attractive, if not particularly original.

In March 1897, Ives must have felt a particular glory when the New Haven (Connecticut) Band traveled to Washington and marched with the Marine Corps Band as both organizations joined in William Will at McKinley's Inauguration Parade.

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