Mr. Mills had been brought up in the fine old school of Democracy. Free speech, free trade, independent action, self-reliance were cardinal14 virtues15 to him. He took his principles as he found them in Thomas Jefferson, and he literally16 followed Jefferson’s advice to go back frequently to the ideas on which the government had been founded for encouragement and advice. The interpretation17 of protection which he had found in force when he entered Congress and the growing combinations of business men to support it, he despised, and from the first all his fighting blood had been up against them. He had been on the Ways and Means Committee continually since his first appointment and had contributed some of the strongest arguments and sayings to be found in the various debates. “Free poker18 and a taxed Gospel” was his phrase; his way of characterizing the failure to get Bibles on the free list and playing cards off.
Naturally Mr. Mills brought to his chairmanship some positive ideas. One of the most positive was that there should be no hearings given to manufacturers. If he had denied the right to life, liberty, and happiness, no louder wail19 would have arisen. With every tariff bill the “hearings” had been growing longer and more futile20, declared Mr. Mills, and one who undertakes to read them, even to look over them, cannot deny that he was right. Admitting all that any candid21 protectionists 157could claim for the value of the hearings there was already an accumulation of recent ones as great as any committee could digest. There were the two big volumes of the tariff commission dated 1883, perhaps on the whole the best which had been taken; there were several volumes from Mr. Morrison’s committee and from the Senate Finance Committee. This was enough in Mr. Mills’s opinion and he set his foot down about taking further testimony22 of this kind. He even held out against meeting socially the gentlemen who haunted Washington for the purpose of keeping their representatives in mind of what might happen “back home” if what they had asked was not given. Several amusing incidents resulted from his obstinate23 stand on the matter. One came through the determination of the “Parsee Merchant” to force Mr. Mills to talk with some of the manufacturers. The “Parsee” was as devoted a free-trader as Mr. Mills, but he did not share Mr. Mills’s antipathy24 to lobbyists. He was a man of the world, a great diner-out, a brilliant talker. At his own dinners in Washington he brought together people of the most varied25 tastes. One night he entertained the Ways and Means Committee, including the Chairman. The dinner was under way when a card was brought in. With assumed surprise Mr. Moore exclaimed, “Why, it’s my friend Mr. Havemeyer, bring him in.” Now for some time Mr. Mills had been besought26 to meet Mr. Havemeyer, and he had persistently27 refused. He did not propose to be trapped into a meeting. The great sugar man came in one door; Mr. Mills went out the other.
Mr. Mills had of course decided28 notions about the principles to be embodied29 in the bill. He stood for free raw materials, and consequently increased the free list considerably30; wool, salt, lumber31, wood pulp32, flax, hemp33, and jute were the important additions. Tin plates and cotton-ties were the leading 158manufactured items he made free. His chief hobby, however, was no specific duties. As the schedules then stood both specific and ad valorem were assessed on a great variety of articles. As an illustration, take dress goods, which started with a division into part wool and all wool. The former class was then divided according to value, those goods worth 20 cents or less per square yard carrying a specific duty of 5 cents per square yard and 35 cents ad valorem; those worth more than 20 cents, 7 cents and 40 per cent ad valorem. All-wool goods were divided according to weight: those weighing 4 ounces or less per square yard carried 9 cents per square yard, and 40 per cent ad valorem; those over 4 ounces, 35 cents per pound and 40 per cent ad valorem. The confusion resulting from this complexity34 was constant and opportunity for fraud increased with each variation. The scandals through the ’70’s and ’80’s charged by the Republicans solely35 to ad valorem duties were largely due to the irritating classifications according to value and the mixture of ad valorem and specific duties.
When Mr. Mills went to work on the bill he had before him a trial measure on which he had spent six months at home before his appointment and which for his own satisfaction he had had printed. He had attempted in his bill to avoid all specific duties; thus in the case of dress goods he wiped out all classifications and put a straight 40 per cent on the value, but as he afterwards said: “When I got to work with my brethren on the bill I found it would not go and I had to abandon my ad valorem tariff bill. The schoolmaster had not been sufficiently37 around to bring our people back to the Democratic principle of taxation38 as to value.” Mr. Mills simplified the complicated cotton schedule in the same way that he had the woollen schedule, by sweeping39 away the confusing classifications and assessing a straight 40 per cent on their 159value. The duties were reduced less drastically on iron and steel, and sugar suffered a reduction of only 18 per cent. The failure to apply the same rule to iron and steel and sugar as to wool and cotton was probably “geographic40,” as Tom Reed charged. “This bill, far from being philosophical41, is political from one end to the other,” Mr. Reed said in debate. “Is it not singular that this great principle of labor42 cost somehow or other seems to be strictly43 geographical—that it strikes the Canadian line with cyclonic44 force and that the Southern states seem to be so far removed from the storm centre as not to be in the slightest degree even ruffled45?” Mr. Mills’s committee was made up largely of Southerners; iron and sugar interests were strong in their districts, both claimed special protection and both received it.
The Mills Bill aroused a tremendous discussion. The “Great Debate,” as it is called in tariff annals, lasted for over a month. One hundred and fifty-one speeches were made, those of Mr. Mills, McMillin of Tennessee, Wilson of West Virginia, Scott of Pennsylvania, Cox of New York, and Carlisle of Kentucky were the most important on the Democratic side: those of Reed of Maine, McKinley of Ohio, Burrows46 of Michigan, Butterworth of Ohio, and Kelley of Pennsylvania, the leading ones on the Republican side. The Democratic attack was along the lines of Mr. Cleveland’s message with particular emphasis on the small per cent of wages directly affected47 by the tariff and the large amount of the duty which went elsewhere than to labor. A large body of expert calculations on these points were at their service. The first point had been recently solved by three able statisticians, each working independent of the other. They were Worthington Ford48, E. B. Elliot, and Simon Newcomb. The results at which they arrived were bad for the claim that high wages depended on protection. They showed that as a fact the duties 160affected but a small amount of labor; according to Mr. Ford 4.07 per cent, according to Mr. Elliot 4.34 per cent, to Mr. Newcomb 5?. That is, there was 94 per cent of the wages of the community which were not affected by tariffs49, although the earners of these wages were paying higher prices for many of the necessities of life because of these tariffs.
On the second point Mr. Mills and his colleague had the completest official study of the cost of production in the United States which had been made up to that time. This study was in the first report ever published by the Bureau of Labor,[1] and was made by our first Commissioner50, Carroll D. Wright. Mr. Wright showed conclusively51 how much less a part muscular labor played in the cost of a great bulk of protected articles than was supposed. Since the Civil War machines had displaced men in the making of agricultural implements52, until 600 men did what formerly53 had required 2100; in boots and shoes 100 were doing what had formerly required 500; in carpet making, in cotton weaving, in the lumber business, in the production of metals, in the manufacture of paper, of woollen goods, of tobacco, of silk, of practically everything, indeed, a sweeping displacement54 of hand labor had taken place and always with a resulting increase of quantity and decrease of labor cost. This was in 1886, and what was then a comparatively new development is to-day an old story, but one far more wonderful. Machines have multiplied and improved in practically every industry, with a resulting decrease in labor cost.
1. The Bureau was established by Congress in 1884, President Arthur approving. Mr. Cleveland made the first appointment in January, 1885.
Mr. Mills made an effective argument from Mr. Wright’s report by comparing the labor cost in the manufacture of many leading necessities of life with the duties which the manufacturers were fighting for in the name of labor.
161“I find in this report,” said Mr. Mills, “one pair of 5–pound blankets. The whole cost as stated by the manufacturer is $2.51. The labor cost is 35 cents. The tariff is $1.90. Now here is $1.55 in this tariff over and above the entire labor cost of these blankets.... Here is one yard of flannel55 weighing 4 ounces; it cost 18 cents, of which the laborer56 got 3 cents, the tariff on it is 8 cents. How is it that the whole 8 cents did not get into the hands of the laborer?... One yard of cashmere, weighing 16 ounces costs $1.38. The labor cost is 29 cents; the tariff duty is 80 cents. One pound of sewing silk costs $5.66; the cost for labor is 85 cents; the tariff is $1.69. One gallon of linseed oil costs 46 cents; the labor cost is 2 cents; the tariff cost is 25 cents. One ton of bar iron costs $31.00. The labor cost is $10.00. The tariff fixes several rates for bar-iron and gives the lowest rate $17.92. One ton of foundry iron costs $11.00; the labor costs $1.64; the tariff is $6.72. None of these tariffs go to the laborer. The road is blocked up. They cannot pass the pocket of the manufacturers. This “great American” system that is intended to secure high wages for our laborers57 is so perverted58 that all its beneficence intended for the poor workingman stops in the pockets of his employer and the laborer only gets what he can command in the open market for his work.”
Now admitting that Mr. Mills was too sweeping in his conclusion, there is no escaping the truth or the meaning of the figures. The price of all sorts of necessary manufactured articles was increased by the duties, rarely to their full amount to be sure, but yet much beyond what was necessary to put the domestic manufacturer on an equal footing with the foreigner. Somebody got the extra profit, and it was not the workingman. But the workingman paid the extra price. Mr. Mills illustrated59 it in this way. “Suppose,” he said, “that a laborer who is earning a dollar a day by his work finds a suit of woollen clothes he can buy for $10.00 without the tariff. Then the suit can be procured60 for 10 days’ work, but 162the manufacturer goes to Congress and says, ‘I must be protected against the man buying this cheap suit of clothes,’ And Congress protects him by putting on a duty of 100 per cent, or $10.00. Now it will require the laborer to work twenty days to get this suit of clothes. Now tell me if 10 days of his labor have not been annihilated61?”
It fell to William McKinley of Ohio, who for the first time in the Great Debate showed his skill in tariff matters, to answer Mr. Mills. “It is an old story,” he said lightly. “It is found in Adam Smith, but it is not true”; and to prove it was not true Mr. McKinley awakened62 the House by dragging from his desk a full suit of ready-made clothes. Holding them up triumphantly63 in one hand, he showed in the other a bill for them. They cost just $10.00. “So you see,” went on Mr. McKinley, “the poor fellow did not have to work 10 days more to get that suit of clothes.” There was “great applause and laughter” on the Republican side and there was talk of having the suit photographed to show in the campaign.
Mr. Mills said nothing, but he began an investigation64. He sent to the shop where, according to the bill read by Mr. McKinley, and printed in the Congressional Record, the suit had been bought, and secured one like it. He then traced it to the manufacturer and from him secured an exact analysis of its cost. The result pleased him and he decided to save it for his speech closing the debate, but when the day came Mr. Mills was so full of facts and figures that he was forgetting the suit. His son, Mr. Charles H. Mills, was in the gallery, and realizing the situation passed down a note reading, “Don’t forget McKinley’s suit of clothes.” A smile passed over the Colonel’s face and taking a fresh start he presented the result of his investigation. The gist65 of his entertaining remarks was that the suit had actually cost to manufacture, tariff aside, just $4.98. The labor cost was 163$1.65. The tariff on the wool used in the suit was $1.70. Adding this to the $4.98, gave $6.68 and on this sum the manufacturer was allowed a duty of 40 per cent to compensate66 for the wool tax and also of 35 per cent to protect him against the imported article. The whole cost, plus the three tariffs was $10.71. “Of course,” said Mr. Mills, “the manufacturer had to undersell the foreign suit and to do so he dropped under him 71 cents and sold his $4.98 suit for $10.00 with the help of the tariffs.”
As for Mr. McKinley’s comment that the illustration came from Adam Smith, Mr. Mills had a story to tell. It reminded him, he said, of the small boy who was caught thieving and whose mother in chiding67 him, said, “Don’t you know it is wrong to steal? Don’t you know what the Bible says?” “Oh, now, mother,” the youngster replied, “that’s an old story. Moses told it 4000 years ago.”
As a matter of fact, Mr. McKinley’s answer to Mr. Mills had been a trick. Mr. Mills had not said that a man could not buy a suit of clothes for $10.00 in the United States; he said that if a tariff of 100 per cent was put on a suit which could be sold for $10.00 without the tariff, a man would pay $20.00 for his suit. Mr. McKinley had diverted attention from the real point simply by holding up a ten-dollar suit in the Halls of Congress. It was characteristic of the way in which the taxation element of the tariff was beginning to be handled that after Mr. Mills’s answer the suit disappeared entirely68 from the debate; that is, there began at this time a concerted effort on the part of supporters of protection to evade69 or deny the fact that the tariff was a tax the effect of which was to increase the cost of living. In all the early years this point was met with fairness. The tariff was a tax consented to by a majority of the people because of what they believed to be good and sufficient reasons. Henry Clay called it a 164tax,—the protectionists who advocated raising the duties in the Civil War called them taxes. The Republican party as a whole admitted them to be taxes in 1872. The tariff Commission of 1883, made up of protectionists, approved by a Republican administration, called them taxes—taxes which had become largely unnecessary for the purposes for which they were laid and therefore unjust.
All through the Great Debate the necessity of stopping the use of the word grew on the Republicans. They sought to replace the obnoxious70 term which was unquestionably influencing the country by something alluring71. The tariff a tax, they cried; why, the tariff is the cause of prosperity; and they set out to force the argument away from the practical questions which Mr. Cleveland’s message had raised,—the question of who, after all, got the profit, the question of the relation of high duties to panics and trusts, to depressions and high prices.
“We have now spent twenty days in the discussion of the Mills Bill,” said Mr. Reed, when he made his leading speech. “Have you noticed what has been the most utterly72 insignificant73 thing in the discussion? The most utterly insignificant thing in the discussion has been the Mills Bill.” It was true, and Mr. Reed’s party was responsible. It was engaged in a shrewd struggle to divert attention from damaging evidence and to establish a superstitious74 reverence75 for the doctrine of protection which would put it out of the reach of attack by facts and logic76.
Seven months after Mr. Cleveland’s message, July 21, the House passed the Mills Bill—passed it by a very decent majority—162 to 114. Mr. Randall’s followers77, who in May, 1884, had been 41 strong against Mr. Morrison’s original bill, and in June, 1886, 35 strong against his second bill, had dwindled78 to three or four. They had not given up without 165a fight. Randall had prepared a second bill to introduce, but even the most devoted of his followers realized the hopelessness at that moment of any bill which advocated reduction as his did by free tobacco and free whiskey and prohibitory tariffs. Randall, too, was away from the House much of the spring of 1888, suffering from the disease which two years later was to end his life; and his group, left without the stimulus79 of his magnetic presence, subject to the pressure of the majority and to the rising popular approval of Mr. Cleveland, dwindled away one by one. They left him with heavy hearts. Indeed, for more than one of them the most painful experience of his political life was “going back on Sam Randall,”—not, let it be noted80, on the doctrine of protection.
Four days after the House bill was passed it was turned over to a sub-committee of the Senate Finance Committee, appointed two months before to prepare for its reception. The chairman of this sub-committee was Senator William B. Allison of Iowa. It could not have been a better man. Allison was at the time nearly sixty years old and he had been in Congress constantly for over twenty-five years. Most of the time he had served on the House or Senate Committees in charge of the tariff. He had begun his career as a very moderate protectionist of the Garfield type. In all of the early years of the Republican struggle to keep the war-time promises as to high duties, i.e. to reduce them as the internal taxes came off, Allison had been a leader. In March of 1870, when the Schenck Bill was under consideration, he made one of the ablest tariff reform speeches of the period; a speech which dogged his later life. But Allison was a strong party man. As the tariff became gradually a matter of politics rather than of principle he adapted his views to the needs of the campaigns, striving diligently81 for duties which would win the most supporters and do the least harm to 166consumers. By temperament82 he was admirably adapted to compromise. They used to say in Iowa that he could walk on eggs from Des Moines to Washington and not break one. Senator Dolliver admirably characterized Senator Allison’s gift of getting on with men in his eulogy83 delivered in the Senate in 1905: “He avoided dogmatism even in its most attractive forms and made room in the expression of his opinion for those differences which he knew would be encountered sooner or later, giving leeway for composing those disagreements which he knew must be composed before anything could be actually done.” Senator Allison was peculiarly ready for making a tariff bill at this time, for he had been the head of a sub-committee which only a few months before had finished an important new measure for reforming the Administration of the Customs. This had already passed the Senate and at the time Allison and his colleagues took up revision, was before the Committee of Ways and Means.
By way of emphasizing its sympathy with the protected as well as to show its disapproval84 of Mr. Mills’s attitude, the Senate Committee began hearings in May of 1888 which were continued at intervals85 until the first of the next year. They make four big volumes and altogether are an illuminating86 compilation87 for the student. Much more important than the hearings was a piece of work going on quietly at the same time at Senator Allison’s request: this was the actual preparation by an expert of a bill which was to serve as a guide and model to the Committee. The expert chosen was Colonel George C. Tichenor, a man who knew more about the administration of our customs and had more authoritative88 notions of what duties should be to meet a moderate protectionist program than anybody then living. Colonel Tichenor had first come into touch with the tariff in 1877 when he 167had been appointed by John Sherman, then Secretary of the Treasury89, a special agent of the Department. Here he was so impressed with the importance of the question and possibly also with the rarity of men who really knew anything about it, that he determined90 to master all its intricacies. In 1881 he was sent abroad by the Secretary to study undervaluations and the cost of production. Colonel Tichenor spent some four years in different parts of Europe seriously examining various sides of the tariff question. His studies had led him to one conclusion which was of particular influence at the moment, and that was that specific duties should replace ad valorem wherever possible, the exact opposite to Mr. Mills’s conclusion. Colonel Tichenor believed the ad valorem duty more equitable91, but that human ingenuity92 and dishonesty would always find ways of evading93 it, and that as a result both the honest importers and the government would suffer. It was to be expected that the administration should feel strongly about undervaluations and be ready to accept almost any system which promised to make them more difficult. The scandals arising from them had been flagrant for years. These undervaluations were by no means due alone to dishonest importers, they were due quite as much to dishonest and incompetent94 customs-house officials, to bungling95 and tricky96 schedules, and to a general belief in Europe that our tariffs ought to be evaded97.
Many of Tichenor’s recommendations had a value which time has emphasized, such was his warning that specific duties could not be placed arbitrarily without grave injustice98; it would require time and preparation to arrange them; such was his protest against “ambiguous phrases, vague description, loose and uncertain definitions, contradictory99 terms” in a tariff law, and his appeal for “plain, simple, and definite terms.”
168Colonel Tichenor had been continued in the Treasury Department after Mr. Sherman left it by President Cleveland. He had been used indeed almost as much by the Democrats as by the Republicans. The Randall Bill referred to above was done largely by Tichenor and into it he had introduced many of his favorite ideas. While he was working on the Randall Bill, Mr. Allison had sought his help on the Customs Administration bill; indeed, the latter was much more Colonel Tichenor’s bill than any one else’s.
It will be seen then that the man to whom Senator Allison turned in the spring of 1888 was thoroughly100 equipped to make a bill—that he did not even have to begin at the bottom. He had one in hand, the Randall Bill introduced in March but which had never been heard from since its reference to the Ways and Means Committee. By readjusting the rates of this bill to meet more perfectly101 Senator Allison’s ideas, Colonel Tichenor soon turned over the document on which the sub-committee went to work. It became apparent almost at once to those who knew what was doing in the Committee that the rates in Colonel Tichenor’s bill were being decidedly increased—a fact which seems to have caused Allison some concern, for we find him writing to Tichenor in August, “You have seen that the constant tendency here is to increase rates. How would this suit our people in the West?”
In October (the 3d) Mr. Allison reported his bill to the Senate as a substitute for the Mills Bill. The latter was so bad, he said, that it could not be amended102. There was nothing to do but prepare an entirely new measure. What this measure was, not Mr. Allison, but Nelson W. Aldrich of Rhode Island, explained. This report is the first important evidence we have of the powerful influence Mr. Aldrich had already come to exercise in the Senate on tariff matters. It is also a 169complete statement of the interpretation of protection which he had adopted and to which he has been ever since faithful. Mr. Aldrich had been in the Senate since 1881. In the making of the bill of 1883 his work for his wool, cotton, and sugar constituents had been marked by those who studied the debates and votes. From that time on business men interested in tariffs had come to count on him more and more. By 1888 he had indeed become more influential103 than either Sherman or Allison. The report he now made shows that he had none of their leanings towards moderation, none of their anxieties over the evils in protection which both had at one time or another admitted, none of their dislike of complicated schedules and classifications. Mr. Aldrich rejected every principle on which Mr. Mills had worked. He was particularly hard on the attempt to substitute ad valorem for specific duties. The most important work Congress had in hand after taking care of the surplus was stopping undervaluations, he declared; nothing but specific duties would accomplish this. No expert knowledge was required for the enforcement of specific duties by customs officials, “as the articles upon which they are levied104 have only to be counted, weighed, or measured”; an extraordinary statement when one remembers the scandals in those years over specific duties on sugar; extraordinary also when one finds that many of the schedules in the new bill, as in the law then in force, were subdivided105 according to the value of the articles, and that in addition to the specific duties on these classes were ad valorem duties. Thus Mr. Aldrich, after denouncing ad valorem duties, presented a bill filled with ad valorems laid on ad valorems! Sharp issue was of course taken with Mr. Mills’s free list. Mr. Aldrich declared it destructive. The Republicans had indeed pretty generally given up the idea of admitting free any raw materials which were produced in this 170country. The notion that if you gave to one you must to all had been steadily106 making converts since the early ’70’s, and it was laid down emphatically now by Mr. Aldrich as one of the tariff principles of the party. No free raw materials where there is competition, but a long free list. Mr. Aldrich called attention to the growth of the free list as a proof of the party’s generosity. In 1847, he said, 88 per cent of the articles imported were dutiable. This had been cut down in 1887 to 66 per cent. This was a deceptive107 statement, for in that period the variety of things imported had enormously increased, and besides the free list was made up largely of articles so rare and unimportant that the ordinary person had to consult the dictionary to know for what many of them were used. In the nature of the case, it could matter little to consumers whether they carried a duty or not. But increasing the free list had become a favorite pastime with enthusiasts108 like Mr. Kelley. It was presented as a proof of the interest that the protectionist had in the consumer!
The general reduction by the Mills Bill of rates on the articles where the tariff affects the multitude, that is, on iron and steel and woollen and cotton goods, was resented bitterly by Mr. Aldrich. He represented the class of Republicans that had come to feel that protection had created these industries and professed109 to believe that duties low enough to admit foreign goods in free competition with them would be ruinous. The Senate bill raised many of the rates considerably above what they were in the bill of ’83, and in other cases lowered them, but still kept them at a prohibitive point. Structural110 steel is a case in point. It had begun to show the future which was before it as a building material replacing wood, particularly in larger buildings and in bridges. Under the bill of ’83 the duty had been 102? per cent. The Mills Bill made it 49.32. The Allison Bill 171now put it up to something over 91 per cent. There was no possible justification111 for so high a duty. Steel beams of foreign manufacture could be put down in the United States at that date at about $27.00 a ton exclusive of the tariff. But steel beams were selling in the United States at $66.00 a ton. The argument which raged over this particular article was typical of the way the two parties were handling the question. Senator Vest, in declaring the rate in the Senate bill excessive, quoted an agreement between Mr. Carnegie and the Knights112 of Labor as his authority for saying that the cost of turning a ton of pig-iron into steel rails was $4.09, and that steel beams cost 30 per cent more, or $5.32 a ton. In reply to this showing, Senator Aldrich said that $4.09 was not a fair estimate of the cost of steel rails, that it represented only the cost of turning pig-iron into steel rails. That on fixing the duty on rails one should go back to the mines and take the cost of the iron as it comes from the earth and the cost of changing it into pig-iron. To which argument Senator Vest replied: “It seems to me, with the greatest respect to the Senators from Iowa and Rhode Island that the proposition is entirely absurd and without the shadow of logical foundation. The pig-iron comes to the manufacture of steel rails a finished product. The cost of the pig-iron had paid all the antecedent cost of manufacture, and it would be just as forcible an argument to say that if the tailor who makes my coat is to be protected, we are not to take as a basis of calculation the cost of the cloth as it came to the tailor’s shop, but we are to go back to the wool of the sheep, to the cost of shearing113, to the cost of washing, to the cost of carting, and all this is to be added to the cost of the cloth, although the tailor has already paid it.”
The opponents of the rates on steel products were loud in their trust alarm. They certainly had an effective example 172to hold up. Mr. Carnegie had begun to come into his own, as an illustration of what combined transportation and tariff privileges can do for an able manufacturer. He and his profits and his castle at Skibo figure in every debate on iron and steel products at this period. Even Senator Aldrich had grudgingly114 to admit a trust in steel beams, but he hopefully declared that if the prohibitive duty was retained, domestic competition would destroy the monopoly. Senator Sherman was not quite so hopeful as Senator Aldrich. He was at last beginning to feel some doubt about the infallibility of domestic competition.
The reduction of the revenue which both parties recognized as of chief importance, the Senate bill sought to effect by the repeal115 or reduction of direct taxes on whiskey, tobacco, and alcohol used in the arts, and by reducing lower than the Mills Bill had the duty on sugar. An important principle which Mr. Aldrich adopted in his report was Mr. Kelley’s favorite argument that the way to reduce was to raise rates so high that people could not afford to import: that is, reduction by increasing taxation. Another significant feature of the document was the complete repudiation116 of the old promise to reduce rates when the extraordinary expenses of the Civil War had been fully13 met. “The practical question which we have to solve,” said Mr. Aldrich, “is not the date when duties were established or the circumstances or promises under which they were levied; but, the desirability of protection being conceded, it is what rates are proper and adequate under existing circumstances.” Equally significant was the almost exclusive attention Mr. Aldrich’s report gave to the manufacturer and his laborer. To hear him one would have gathered that the interests of the consumers could not be served except through protection. The almost exclusive attention given to the manufacturer by the 173Senate bill was only an expression of the appeal which the Republican party was making in the campaign for the presidency117. The platform of the party had declared, “The protection system must be maintained”; such a revision must be made as would “check imports of such articles as are produced by our people, the production of which gives employment to our labor, and releases from import duties those articles of foreign production, except luxuries, the like of which cannot be produced at home. If there still remains118 a larger revenue than is required for the wants of the government, we favor the entire repeal of internal taxes rather than the surrender of any part of our protective system, at the joint119 behest of the whiskey trust and the agents of foreign manufacturers.” It was practically a declaration for prohibitive tariff, nothing else indeed would “check imports of such articles as are made by our people.”
There is no doubt that the party was driven to this extreme position on protection by its own political difficulties. The Mugwump movement out of the party in the early ’80’s, due partly to the failure of the leaders to keep faith on the tariff, and more to the general corruption in its service and its methods, had cost them the election of 1884. Mr. Cleveland had stolen their thunder as revisionists when he put boldly to the country a doctrine very like that which they had publicly proclaimed in 1872 and 1880. The only element in the country they could rely upon in 1888 was the manufacturers, and they could only rely upon them when they gave them what they asked. Particularly necessary was it that they produce a bill which should in principle and practice satisfy the Iron and Steel Association. This organization had come to take the same political relation to the tariff that the Industrial League had held earlier. Like its predecessor120, it aspired121 to choose chairmen for the Ways and 174Means Committee, to name presidents, and to write tariff bills. Its position in the Republican party in 1888, which was close to that of a dictator, was due almost as much to the recognition it had received from Mr. Blaine as to its own energy and efficiency. As we have seen, Mr. Blaine in the ’70’s had thought it good politics to serve the Industrial League in any way he could. When the Iron and Steel Association gradually replaced that organization he followed the same practice and in 1884, took one of its leading members, B. F. Jones of Pittsburg, as chairman of the Republican National Convention. Mr. Cleveland’s election, and the popular revolt against the high tariff attitude, had only quickened the determination of the Iron and Steel Association to protectionize the country, to get out of the way all pestiferous Republican tariff reformers, all free-trade and tariff-for-revenue only Democrats. They began on the Congressional districts and did some most effective work. Their most brilliant stroke was defeating William R. Morrison of Illinois in 1886. For years Mr. Morrison had represented his District in Congress. He had won the hostility122 of the Iron and Steel Association by his aggressive fight on protection, and it decided he must go. In the fall of 1886 John Jarrett of Pittsburg, a former president of the Amalgamated123 Iron and Steel Association and at the time president of the Tin Plate Association, went into Mr. Morrison’s district, and by free use of money, “$3.00 a day and all necessary expenses” according to his own published letters, had organized a large body of laborers to work for protection. There were some bitter charges made against Jarrett’s methods; whatever they were, and it seems from the evidence that they were “bribery and hiring,” they were successful. Mr. Morrison’s majority was changed to a substantial minority.
When it came to the campaign of 1888 the Iron and Steel 175Association decided that the most critical point was the chairman of the National Republican Committee. Jones had made a fiasco of the campaign of 1884—no more practical business men were wanted. The one man the Association did want was Senator Quay124 of Pennsylvania. But Mr. Quay had a record behind him that he was none too anxious to have aired, and he did not want the work. The Iron and Steel Association, however, had determined that he must serve, and in July, a few days before the National Committee met, James M. Swank, who had been secretary of the Association since 1873 and its general manager since 1885, a position he still holds, and who for many years has managed every tariff campaign in which his Association has been interested, took matters into his own hands and telegraphed General Harrison’s managers that it was Senator Quay alone who would meet the approval of the financial interests of the East. Without his knowledge Senator Quay was appointed. He had not been in favor of Harrison’s nomination125, had only consented to it when he found John Sherman, his own candidate, could not be named, and even then not until he had assurances from Indianapolis that Pennsylvania should have a seat in the cabinet. Nominated by the committee, he finally accepted. The first person Mr. Quay consulted was John Wanamaker (who afterwards received the seat in the cabinet which Mr. Harrison had promised Pennsylvania), who saw to the funds. As to Mr. Quay, he saw to using them to oil and fire the remarkable126 campaign he set in force—a campaign for protection backed by the protected. The highest Republican political authorities have declared repeatedly that only Quay could have won the campaign of 1888.
It is doubtful if there has ever been a political campaign in the United States where the appeal for money was so frank—the 176acknowledgment that success depended upon it so open. For several years the party had been relying more and more on the use of money and had also been less and less nice about how it used it. It was an open secret that Indiana had been carried in 1880 by the “bright new crisp two-dollar bills” of Stephen W. Dorsey, secretary of the National Republican Executive Committee. The dominant127 faction36 of the party seemed indeed to think Dorsey’s work nothing more than a clever trick; no less a person than General Arthur, soon to be inaugurated as Vice-President of the United States, boasting of it at a dinner at Delmonico’s in February, 1881, said, “Indiana was really, I suppose, a Democratic state. It had been put down in the books always as a state that might be carried by close and perfect organization and a great deal of ——” General Arthur hesitated, while everybody laughed. “I see the reporters are present,” he continued; “therefore I will simply say that everybody showed a great deal of interest in the occasion and distributed tracts128 and political documents all through the state.”
The struggle for money in 1884 had been almost pathetic. Mr. Jones had of course the richest group in the country to draw from—the iron and steel manufacturers, and he gave liberally himself,—$87,000, it was reported at the time. He did not get enough, and a few days before the election, October 29, a dinner was given in New York for the express purpose of raising funds: a millionnaires’ dinner, at which were represented all the various “special interests” of the day, not tariff interests alone, but the railroads, the Standard Oil Company, monopolies and privileges generally. Large sums of money were pledged at this “Belshazzar’s Feast,” as the newspapers dubbed129 it. Who gave, and how much, were of course not recorded. David Wells said that he had it on the best authority that Jay Gould and John Wanamaker each 177contributed $100,000, but what his authority was the author does not know. Campaign contributions were not in as bad order in 1884 as they are to-day, but there was still a certain sense that contributions of $100,000 to campaign expenses, made on the eve of an election, were suspicious, and there is no doubt that the “monopoly dinner” helped defeat Blaine.
Another practice carried to the scandal point in the campaign of ’84 was that of extracting contributions from government officials. In Indiana a political manager informed the Federal employees that a list of the names and amounts given by each person would be carefully made out and the same reported to the National Committee, and a list would also be made of all persons who did not contribute. Quarters were set up in Washington purposely to work the government employees. In 1888 these proceedings130 were not repeated by the Republicans, and rumor131 that the Democrats in Chicago were attempting them caused a violent discussion in Congress.
The money precedent132 was well established then in the party and in 1888 the managers began as early as May, before the Convention nominated Harrison, to gather it in. The Mills Bill, with its free list, ad valorem duties, and reduced schedules, was still in debate, and naturally the money-getters appealed to the protected. James P. Foster, President of the Republican League of the United States sounded the slogan for the campaign in a letter which stated with amazing frankness the feeling the Republicans themselves had about who was getting the benefit of the “bulwark of prosperity.” It was the manufacturers, particularly the manufacturers of Pennsylvania, who being the most highly protected, ought to be “put over the fire and all the fat fried out of them.” Throughout his campaign Mr. Foster kept up this cry for “fat.” Another 178organization as active in money raising as Mr. Foster’s Republican League was the Tariff League founded in 1884 by Robert Porter, one of the members of the Tariff Commission of 1883. This League took itself with great seriousness and taught the doctrine pure and undefiled without qualification or hesitation133. It divided none of the glory of prosperity with the energy and the thrift134 or the natural resources of the country. We were what we were because of protection and protection alone. The officers of the League undoubtedly135 believed in what they said, and they raised money as men would to spread the Gospel.
It was impossible that money raised from men interested as beneficiaries of protection were, should be all used without scandal. The one implies the other. Perhaps the most notorious incident of misused136 funds occurred in General Harrison’s own state.
But quite apart from the corruption which went on, a great debate characterized the campaign,—a debate which followed the line of the House arguments on the Mills Bill, of the Senate’s on the Allison Bill. The speeches in the two Houses were indeed campaign speeches, addresses not to a deliberating body, but to a balloting137 constituency. The Democrats depended mainly on the cry of excessive taxation. Their platform had rung the changes on the word until it almost lost its effect from over-repetition. The Republicans seized the opening and answered them with jeers138. In New York City they even carried parrots in their processions taught to cry “tariff is a tax.” The high prices of certain necessities like woollen garments due to the tariff was another effective Democratic argument. General Harrison dismissed it lightly. “I have an impression,” he said, “that some things may be too cheap” “cheap coats involve cheap men.” There could have been no better epigram for those bent139 on keeping up prices. 179Argue as the Democrats would that the man who had to pay $20.00 here for a suit that would cost him but $10.00 abroad, would be better off if he could put his extra money to other uses, the Republicans could cry “But without the tariff he would have no twenty dollars, he would have no ten, for he would have no work!” The fallacy that there would be nothing to do in the country if protection did not enable men to manufacture was insisted on continually. Moreover, the Republicans would not admit what was, and still is, true, that the great body of wages in protected industries is less than in the unprotected. The trusts figured repeatedly in the attack on the Republican position, only to be waved aside, as by Mr. Blaine. “Trusts,” he declared, “are state issues,” “they have no place in a national campaign.”
The Republicans were not without good ammunition140. The Democratic revision was full of inconsistencies as any revision made as ours are, is bound to be. It did show geographic bias141. Moreover, the Democratic position had the disadvantage of being an attempt to meet a condition and one not of their making. They might be free traders as a few of them were; they might be tariff-for-revenue only men, as most of them were, but when it came to making a tariff bill they felt themselves obliged to fix duties not only with revenue and reform in mind, but with protection as well. The Republicans could taunt142 them with inconsistency and cowardice143 and describe their revenue duties as disguised protection to their own friends. And in the same breath that they accused them of protecting their friends they anathematized them as “free-traders,” friends of England, enemies of their own countrymen.
The Republicans won the election, though not overwhelmingly. As a matter of fact, Grover Cleveland had a majority of 100,000 of the popular vote. It was not the tariff which 180gave them the victory. Their victory would have been a defeat if it had not been for the Democratic split which gave them New York, and the return to their fold of a certain Mugwump Republican element which had revolted in 1884 and now came back because dissatisfied with Mr. Cleveland’s civil service work.
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1
ironies
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| n.反语( irony的名词复数 )；冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事；嘲弄 | |
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democrat
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| n.民主主义者，民主人士；民主党党员 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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tariff
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| n.关税，税率；(旅馆、饭店等)价目表，收费表 | |
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constituents
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| n.选民( constituent的名词复数 )；成分；构成部分；要素 | |
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chivalry
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| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
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exasperated
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| adj.恼怒的 | |
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generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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democrats
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| n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 ) | |
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opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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13
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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14
cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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20
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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24
antipathy
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| n.憎恶；反感，引起反感的人或事物 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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besought
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| v.恳求，乞求（某事物）( beseech的过去式和过去分词 )；(beseech的过去式与过去分词) | |
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persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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31
lumber
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| n.木材，木料；v.以破旧东西堆满；伐木；笨重移动 | |
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32
pulp
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| n.果肉，纸浆；v.化成纸浆，除去...果肉，制成纸浆 | |
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33
hemp
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| n.大麻；纤维 | |
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complexity
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| n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物 | |
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solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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36
faction
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| n.宗派，小集团；派别；派系斗争 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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38
taxation
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| n.征税，税收，税金 | |
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39
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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40
geographic
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| adj.地理学的，地理的 | |
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philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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42
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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43
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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cyclonic
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| adj.气旋的，飓风的 | |
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45
ruffled
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| adj. 有褶饰边的, 起皱的 动词ruffle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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46
burrows
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| n.地洞( burrow的名词复数 )v.挖掘（洞穴），挖洞( burrow的第三人称单数 )；翻寻 | |
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47
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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48
Ford
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| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
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49
tariffs
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| 关税制度； 关税( tariff的名词复数 )； 关税表； （旅馆或饭店等的）收费表； 量刑标准 | |
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50
commissioner
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| n.（政府厅、局、处等部门）专员，长官，委员 | |
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51
conclusively
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| adv.令人信服地，确凿地 | |
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52
implements
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| n.工具( implement的名词复数 )；家具；手段；[法律]履行（契约等）v.实现( implement的第三人称单数 )；执行；贯彻；使生效 | |
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53
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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54
displacement
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| n.移置，取代，位移，排水量 | |
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55
flannel
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| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
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laborer
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| n.劳动者，劳工 | |
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laborers
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| n.体力劳动者，工人( laborer的名词复数 )；（熟练工人的）辅助工 | |
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58
perverted
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| adj.不正当的v.滥用( pervert的过去式和过去分词 )；腐蚀；败坏；使堕落 | |
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59
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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60
procured
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的过去式和过去分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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annihilated
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| v.（彻底）消灭( annihilate的过去式和过去分词 )；使无效；废止；彻底击溃 | |
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62
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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63
triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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gist
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| n.要旨；梗概 | |
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66
compensate
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| vt.补偿，赔偿；酬报 vi.弥补；补偿；抵消 | |
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67
chiding
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| v.责骂，责备( chide的现在分词 ) | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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evade
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| vt.逃避，回避；避开，躲避 | |
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obnoxious
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| adj.极恼人的，讨人厌的，可憎的 | |
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alluring
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| adj.吸引人的，迷人的 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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76
logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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77
followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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dwindled
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| v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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81
diligently
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| ad.industriously;carefully | |
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82
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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83
eulogy
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| n.颂词；颂扬 | |
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84
disapproval
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| n.反对，不赞成 | |
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85
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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86
illuminating
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| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
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87
compilation
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| n.编译，编辑 | |
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88
authoritative
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| adj.有权威的，可相信的；命令式的；官方的 | |
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treasury
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| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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equitable
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| adj.公平的；公正的 | |
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ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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evading
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| 逃避( evade的现在分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出 | |
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incompetent
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| adj.无能力的，不能胜任的 | |
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95
bungling
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| adj.笨拙的，粗劣的v.搞糟，完不成( bungle的现在分词 )；笨手笨脚地做；失败；完不成 | |
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tricky
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| adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的 | |
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evaded
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| 逃避( evade的过去式和过去分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出 | |
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injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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contradictory
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| adj.反驳的，反对的，抗辩的；n.正反对，矛盾对立 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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102
Amended
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| adj. 修正的 动词amend的过去式和过去分词 | |
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103
influential
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| adj.有影响的，有权势的 | |
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104
levied
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| 征（兵）( levy的过去式和过去分词 )； 索取； 发动（战争）； 征税 | |
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subdivided
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| 再分，细分( subdivide的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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107
deceptive
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| adj.骗人的，造成假象的，靠不住的 | |
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enthusiasts
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| n.热心人，热衷者( enthusiast的名词复数 ) | |
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professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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structural
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| adj.构造的，组织的，建筑（用）的 | |
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justification
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| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
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112
knights
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| 骑士； （中古时代的）武士( knight的名词复数 )； 骑士； 爵士； （国际象棋中）马 | |
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113
shearing
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| n.剪羊毛，剪取的羊毛v.剪羊毛( shear的现在分词 )；切断；剪切 | |
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grudgingly
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115
repeal
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| n.废止，撤消；v.废止，撤消 | |
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116
repudiation
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| n.拒绝；否认；断绝关系；抛弃 | |
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117
presidency
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| n.总统(校长，总经理)的职位(任期) | |
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118
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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119
joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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predecessor
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| n.前辈，前任 | |
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121
aspired
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| v.渴望，追求( aspire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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122
hostility
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| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
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123
amalgamated
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| v.（使）（金属）汞齐化( amalgamate的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）合并；联合；结合 | |
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124
quay
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| n.码头，靠岸处 | |
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125
nomination
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| n.提名，任命，提名权 | |
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126
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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dominant
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| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
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128
tracts
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| 大片土地( tract的名词复数 )； 地带； （体内的）道； （尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的）短文 | |
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129
dubbed
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| v.给…起绰号( dub的过去式和过去分词 )；把…称为；配音；复制 | |
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130
proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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131
rumor
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| n.谣言，谣传，传说 | |
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132
precedent
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| n.先例，前例；惯例；adj.在前的，在先的 | |
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133
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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134
thrift
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| adj.节约，节俭；n.节俭，节约 | |
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135
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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136
misused
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| v.使用…不当( misuse的过去式和过去分词 )；把…派作不正当的用途；虐待；滥用 | |
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137
balloting
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| v.（使）投票表决( ballot的现在分词 ) | |
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138
jeers
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| n.操纵帆桁下部（使其上下的）索具；嘲讽( jeer的名词复数 )v.嘲笑( jeer的第三人称单数 ) | |
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139
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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140
ammunition
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| n.军火，弹药 | |
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141
bias
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| n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见 | |
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142
taunt
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| n.辱骂，嘲弄；v.嘲弄 | |
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143
cowardice
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| n.胆小，怯懦 | |
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