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As a matter of fact the bill now so suddenly sprung on the Senate had been lying in wait for some seven months for just such a contingency as the failure of the tariff bill--a fine example of business foresight! This was its history: In July, 1866, when the Senate postponed taking up the tariff Judge Bingham of Ohio had brought into the House a bill providing for higher duties on wool and woollens. It was evidently framed to take care of the wool-growers of his state. Certain woollen manufacturers, who had known nothing of his intention, saw the danger of the bill antagonizing both Congress and those manufacturers who were advocating free wool, and persuaded Judge Bingham to allow it to be sidetracked until the fate of the general tariff was decided. This was done, the bill being quietly passed on to the Senate, where nobody but Mr. Sherman seems to have known or remembered anything about it. When the tariff bill dropped, the wool interests immediately asked that their special measure be presented, and Mr. Sherman agreed. Part of the dismay that the Senate showed at the presentation of the measure was no doubt due to its familiarity with the solid organization and effective lobbying of the wool manufacturing interests of that day as well as with their reputation for unsavory lobbying in the past. It was not yet forgotten how in the forties and fifties the wool interests had combined with the Pennsylvania iron men to force Western representatives, who at that time were all working for land grants for railroads, to vote for their tariffs. The scandal of 1857 in the fight for free raw wool was not yet forgotten. The charge of corruption at that time had even forced a Congressional investigation in which it was shown that one Boston wool firm had spent some ,000 of its own money besides some thousands of other people's. These sums they charged frankly on their books "to expenses in securing the passage of the tariff of 1857." The investigation showed that the agent of the manufacturers confiscated most of the money intrusted to him; that none of it, as far as shown, ever reached a Congressman, though a considerable sum did go to editors and "influential persons"--such was 00 to Mr. Thurlow Weed, for collecting statistics and using arguments!

This was the basis of the wool schedule which had been embodied in Mr. Morrill's bill and also of the bill which Mr. Sherman had sprung on the Senate. That the Senate did not like the wool bill was evident. On all sides there was strenuous opposition to protecting one industry and not another, and yet the bill went through. It is worth nothing in view of the support of the scandalous wool schedule of 1909 by both the Senators from Massachusetts, that both Senators Summer and Wilson of Massachusetts voted against the wool bill of 1867 and that Senators Morrill and Fessenden absented themselves. A few hours before the end of the session the wool bill was received by the House and passed. But its fate was by no means decided. It still must have the President's signature, and the President was Andrew Johnson. Johnson was in poor temper to favor any measure sanctioned by "Thad Stevens and his gang." He had just vetoed one of Stevens's pet measures, and it was very likely he would veto any bill favoring a special interest, for his traditions and sympathies were all with a liberal commercial policy. Mr. Hayes knew this, and he and his friends collected outside the door of the Capitol chamber, where, as the custom is, the President signs bills on the last night of a session. Late in the evening it was rumored that the bill would be vetoed. Hayes hurriedly summoned aid,--Bingham of Ohio, the framer of the bill, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Attorney-General. What pressure this force brought to bear on Mr. Johnson is unknown, but at a minute before twelve, according to Mr. Hayes's story, the President put his name to the wool bill. It was a great triumph for Mr. Hayes. "The wool bill of 1867 and its enactment into law," says one of the protectionist organs, "were chiefly due to his personal influence with leading members of both branches of Congress."

The passage of the wool bill proved that an industry, if strongly enough organized and headed by a sufficiently able and respectable lobbyist, could secure from the Congress of the United States protective favors which could not be secured for the whole mass of industries. The lesson had immediate effect. The next year Congress was asked to pass a similar bill, favoring the Lake Superior copper industry. The rich mines in that section had been in operation for several years, and in the last two or three years their output had been increasing rapidly. As was natural, there had been a great amount of speculation in copper mining stocks. The public had subscribed almost as much to wildcat and bogus copper schemes in this period as to the same kind of oil schemes. Probably something like ,000,000 had been actually invested in the region, there were forty or fifty thousand persons settled in the district, and there was a considerable fleet on the Lakes in the copper-carrying trade. It was the beginning of a great industry. Now for many years there had been in Maryland, Connecticut, and Massachusetts copper-smelting works which used ores from Chile and Cuba mixed with ores from the Eastern states. Since 1864 the Eastern concerns had paid a duty of 5 per cent on foreign copper ore. The Lake Superior interests had been suffering for several months from decreased prices, due largely to a great increase in the world's copper output. They had asked relief in 1866, and a higher duty had been accorded them in the bill that failed. They now concluded, as the wool men had, that if they could not get what they wanted in one way they would in another, and in July, 1868, brought in a bill asking for a duty equal to about 25 per cent on copper ore. It was a rate which, if granted, was bound to put the New England and Baltimore works out of commission, put an end to the carrying trade with Chile and Cuba, raise the price of copper so that American-built ships could not get their copper bottoms in our ports, and drive many industries then using copper to cheaper substitutes, like galvanized iron, sheet tin, zinc, or lead, and put still others to an expense which, as they would have no compensating tariffs to protect them, would greatly cripple them. Excited debate followed the bill everywhere, especially in the Senate, where Zach Chandler fought for it. The time had come, he declared, when the manufacturers were not going to have all the protection; miners and farmers were going to have it now. There was not an article made in Connecticut, which was opposing this bill, which was not protected, "not an article from a wooden button to a brass clock or from carpetings to Jew's harps." If you don't give protection to us this way , we'll take a horizontal tariff for our copper and lumber and wheat and wool, and then if "your clocks will not run, let them stop." His picture of the suffering of the miners following the closing of the mines no doubt won many to the measure. It was because of that, said Mr. Morrill, that he should vote for it, though he believed it would help speculation in copper stocks more than the suffering miners of Michigan, and that it was a blow to ship-building and commerce. Would it not be better, suggested Mr. Grimes of Iowa, to organize a branch of the Freedman's Bureau and send it to Michigan to take care of the miners?

The bill finally passed and by large majorities, and in February, 1869, went to President Johnson. Whatever the influences which had induced Johnson to sign a bill which must have been so repugnant to him as the wool bill, there was little chance that they would have any effect upon him now. His term was almost over. In a few days he was to yield the White House to "that little fellow Grant," as he called him, and go back to his Tennessee home to hoe potatoes and discuss politics with his neighbors in his son-in-law's village store.

He was going out in a sense victorious, for he had not been convicted, and his arch-enemy Stevens was dead, and yet it is doubtful if the end of his terrific fight with Congress gave him much happiness, if indeed anything could give him real happiness. Certainly Johnson suffered throughout his four years as President as few people at the time realized. One of his secretaries once said that in the two years he was with him in the White House he never saw him smile but once. Ill himself, his beloved wife a bed-ridden invalid, unfitted for companionship, suspicious of his associates, narrow in mind, bitter and resentful in heart, there was little reason indeed why Andrew Johnson should smile. Yet unquestionably he got a grim pleasure from his vetoes, even out of his impeachment trial. He believed he would be convicted, and his secretary tells of the satisfaction he got from the idea that his persecutors would all come to bad ends. He learned Addison's Cato by heart, and went about the White House rooms delivering it. He studied the trial of Charles I of England, and ordered the names of those who signed the death warrant and the terrible ends to which they all came tabulated. His secretary says he believes Johnson was not a little disappointed when he was acquitted. It took from him the bitterest of the many bitter cuds he incessantly chewed.

Throughout his administration Johnson had fought with little effect the horde of lobbyists, speculators, land grant agents, and other suppliants for government aid, whom the war had brought together and Congress had rather encouraged than discouraged. The bills granting tariffs to special interests belonged to this category unquestionably, however respectable their supporters, and it was to be expected that Johnson would veto the copper bill, and he did, sending with his veto the following message--not his own, however. The letter was written by Mr. Wells.

Its immediate effect will be to diminish the public receipts, for the object of the bill cannot be accomplished without seriously affecting the importation of copper and copper ores, from which a considerable revenue is at present derived. While thus impairing the resources of the government, it imposes an additional tax upon an already overburdened people, who should not be further impoverished that monopolies may be fostered and corporations enriched.

It is represented, and the declaration seems to be sustained by evidence, that the duties for which this bill provides are nearly or quite sufficient to prohibit the importation of certain foreign ores of copper. Its enactments, therefore, will prove detrimental to the shipping interests of the nation, and at the same time destroy the business, for many years successively established, of smelting home ores in connection with a smaller amount of the imported articles. This business, it is credibly asserted, has heretofore yielded the larger share of the copper production of the country, and thus the industry which this legislation is designed to encourage is actually less than that which will be destroyed by the passage of the bill.

It seems also to be evident that the effect of this measure will be to enhance by 70 per cent the cost of blue vitriol--an article extensively used in dyeing and in the manufacture of printed and colored cloths. To produce such an augmentation in the price of this commodity will be to discriminate against other great branches of domestic industry, and by increasing their cost expose them most unfairly to the effects of foreign competition. Legislation can be neither wise nor just which seeks the welfare of a single interest at the expense and to the injury of many and varied interests at least equally important and equally deserving the consideration of Congress.

The enactment of such a law is urged as necessary for the relief of certain mining interests upon Lake Superior, which, it is alleged, are in a greatly depressed condition, and can only be sustained by an enhancement of the price of copper. If this result should follow the passage of the bill, a tax for the exclusive benefit of a single class would be imposed upon the consumers of copper throughout the entire country not warranted by any need of the government, and the avails of which would not in any degree find their way into the treasury of the nation. If the miners of Lake Superior are in a condition of want, it cannot be justly affirmed that the government should extend charity to them in preference to those of its citizens who in other portions of the country suffer in like manner from destitution. Least of all should endeavor to aid them be based upon a method so uncertain and indirect as that contemplated by the bill, and which, moreover, proposes to continue the exercise of its benefactions through an indefinite period of years. It is, besides, reasonable to hope that positive suffering from want, if it really exists, will prove but temporary in a region where agricultural labor is so much in demand and so well compensated. A careful examination of the subject appears to show that the present low price of copper, which alone has induced any depression the mining interests of Lake Superior may have recently experienced, is due to causes which it is wholly unpolitic, if not impracticable, to contravene by legislation. These causes are in the main an increase in the general supply of copper, owing to the discovery and working of remarkably productive mines and to a coincident restriction in the consumption and use of copper by the substitution of other and cheaper metals for industrial purposes.

Although providing for an increase of duties, the proposed law does not even come within the range of protection in the fair acceptance of the term. It does not look to the fostering of a young and feeble interest, with a view to the ultimate attainment of strength and the capacity of self-support. It appears to assume that the present inability for successful production is inherent and permanent, and is more likely to increase than to be gradually overcome; yet in spite of this it proposes by the exercise of the law-making power to sustain that interest and to impose it in hopeless perpetuity as a tax upon the competent and beneficent industries of the country.

The true method for the mining interests of Lake Superior to obtain relief, if relief is needed, is to endeavor to make their great natural resources fully available by reducing the cost of production. Special or class legislation cannot remedy the evils which this bill is designed to meet. They can only be overcome by laws which will effect a wise, honest, and economical administration of the government, a reestablishment of the special standard of values and an early adjustment of our system of state, municipal, and national taxation upon the fundamental principle that all taxes, whether collected under the internal revenue or under a tariff, shall interfere as little as possible with the productive energies of the people.

The bill is therefore returned, in the belief that the true interest of the government and of the people require it should not become a law.

ANDREW JOHNSON.

Of course Congress passed the bill over Johnson's veto. Mr. Pike of Maine, who regarded the bill as "class legislation of the worst kind," and knew the feeling that one of the President's vetoes inspired, begged his colleagues "to vote on the measure and not on Andrew Johnson," but no remonstrance or argument had any effect. The bill was passed over the veto by a large majority.

It was again demonstrated that any private interest which could secure the backing of a powerful Senator or Representative like Sherman of Ohio, Chandler of Michigan, Kelley of Pennsylvania, could obtain what it wanted from the Congress of the United States, though that favor might raise prices to consumers without giving them compensation in other directions, might destroy established industries, and injure an established commerce.

These unjust and unscientific duties had not been laid without protest. Men like Morrill, Garfield, Fessenden, Allison, Kasson, Raymond, and Sumner had warned against the outbreak. "It smells of monopoly," they said again and again, and yet most of them when it came to the test voted with their party. Many of the ablest Republican newspapers, especially those in the West, harangued incessantly against the unfairness of the legislation. But remonstrance, even an attempt at discussion, only aroused the angry cry of "free-trader" from the dominant faction in Congress. "It has become impossible," said Mr. Wells, in his report of December, 1869, for one "to suggest any reduction or modification whatever looking to the abatement of prices artificially maintained in the interest of special industries without being immoderately assailed with accusations of corrupt and unpatriotic motives."

The tariff legislation was but a part of the deplorable and general attempt which followed the war to make Congress do for the individual what it was his business to do for himself. Men seemed to believe that their futures depended on legislation--to have forgotten or never realized that legislation can do nothing more than distribute wealth--it cannot produce it, and that the only way you can get money to legislate into the pocket of one individual is by taking it out of the pocket of another. Washington had come to be filled with as fine a band of plunderers as ever besieged a National Congress: tax swindlers, smugglers, speculators in land grants, railroad lobbyists, agents of ship companies, mingled with the representatives of industries seeking protection, until it seemed as if Congress was little more than a Relief Bureau. At one time in 1869 there were 41 railroads or would-be railroads seeking aid in the House, and 37 in the Senate. What was to be the effect of this outbreak of protectionism? Many sober people asked themselves the question in dismay. But at the moment everybody was looking to Grant. The new President would certainly help the situation--bring back Congress and the party to candid discussion, institute economies, clear Washington of the self-seekers.

Whatever hope moderate protectionists in Congress may have had that the new President would be influenced by their arguments in favor of tariff reform, was soon scattered. General Grant was of uncertain political antecedents. It is doubtful if he ever had any particular interest in the tariff question, and it is certain that he did not at that moment consider it a question for his administration to meddle with. In his first message he advised postponement of revision and against the renewal of the reciprocity treaty between the British Provinces and the United States. The one financial duty which he saw at his inauguration was the resumption of specie payment, and on that his voice was firm.

But even more important than the attitude of the new President on the tariff was the attitude of the new leader of the House. Who that would be was still uncertain. Thaddeus Stevens, who for fully eight years had driven the House like a flock of sheep, had died in August, 1868. There is no doubt that a sigh of relief went up from all the younger element in Congress. "The death of Thaddeus Stevens is the emancipation of the Republicans. He kept the party under his heel," said James G. Blaine one day soon after, as he walked in the rotunda of the Capitol with a friend. "Whom have you got for leaders?" asked the friend. "There are three young men coming forward," Blaine replied. "Allison will be heard from, so will James A. Garfield," and then he paused. "Who is the third?" "I don't see the third," Blaine replied, gazing up into the dome. The third appeared a little later when Mr. Blaine was elected Speaker of the Forty-first Congress.

The vitality of the opposition within the party made itself evident, however, almost at once. Republican district conventions, particularly in the West, showed themselves restive, and at Mansfield, Ohio, in June, 1869, General Roeliff Brinkerhoff actually succeeded in getting into a Republican platform the following resolution:

At the same time Henry Carey threw himself into the debate, writing a long series of letters to public men. Carey was at this time over 75 years old--and a more fierce and dogmatic championship of a cause could not be conceived than his of high protection and of paper money. Originally a free-trader Carey had early concluded that society was too undeveloped to practise it, and that a long period of protection must precede. His views on social and economic subjects he had elaborated in many volumes, the first of which had been published in 1835. The chief of his works are his "Principles of Political Economy" and his "Principles of Social Science." Both of these have been translated into a half dozen European languages, and they certainly must be reckoned with largely in tracing the influences which have made for protection in our time. Carey in spite of all his hard labor saw the people recede from his views in 1846, and the return to protection in 1860 had given him unbounded joy. He wrote Morrill frequent letters of counsel and instruction when he was at work on the bill of 1861, urging him always to more arbitrary action than his just and reasonable mind relished. "Nothing less than a dictator is required for making a really good tariff," Carey once said to him. So convinced was he of his position, so sure that he had solved finally the economic problem that any discussion or criticism spurred him to the most intolerant opposition. After Richard Cobden's death in 1865, Carey said in a public gathering in Philadelphia that he regarded it as one of those instances of special providence for which the United States had especial reason to be thankful; for, said Carey, it was the intention of Mr. Cobden if he had lived to have again visited the United States; if he had done so he might have lectured, and so have done great harm to the cause of protection.

As a matter of fact Wells was doing serious injury to the schedules then in force by pointing out what they were and were not doing. For instance there was the wool bill of 1867. It had been in operation for nearly two years, and according to Mr. Wells wool was in a more depressed state than before its passage. His summary of conditions was startling:

"In short," concluded Mr. Wells after a full discussion of these points, "what is now needed to restore prosperity to the woollen industry, is a removal of all duties on the importation of foreign wools and dyestuffs, and a general reduction of the duties on manufactured woollen fabrics of every description to 25 per cent ad valorem. On this basis the most experienced woollen manufacturers in the country assure the commissioner that they can at once extend, diversify, and secure prosperity in their business. On this basis the cost of domestic fabrics will be so far reduced as to give great relief to the consumer, and lead to an immediate and largely increased consumption. And on this basis only can the wool-growers expect any immediate increased demand for his staple product of merino fleece; while in respect to the combing and the finer wools it is sufficient to say that the supply of these wools has not for the last few years increased in proportion to their consumption, and that the extension of their use in the American industry, which would inevitably follow a remission of the duties upon their import, would so far increase their demand as to give to the domestic producer all the encouragement that would prove necessary."

In the meantime the Michigan salt-works were growing rapidly. Their output which in 1860 had been but 4000 barrels became over a half million in 1864! But the same thing happened there as in Syracuse--too many companies. Sixty-six were operating there by 1866, and combination was applied, and the Michigan companies were soon consolidated into two. But the end of the war loosened the Southern works and competition was in danger of being restored. The New York and Michigan companies hastened to prevent such a disaster. They entered into negotiations with the Ohio River Company to limit the output, and the latter to make itself firmer leased the Kanawha, Virginia, Salt Springs for ,000 a year and shut them down. Simultaneously with this campaign for making salt scarce at home, the industry began one to make it still dearer, an agitation for more duty--18 and 24 cents a hundred pounds were not enough, they wanted 30 and 42 cents, and this in spite of the fact that the internal revenue tax had been removed from salt. If the copper and wool men could get special bills through, why not they? There seemed no good reason to the House of Representatives--and they actually passed the measure--though the Senate did not concur, for lack of time, and the bill never became a law.

This interesting combination had not only succeeded through the tariff in making salt scarce and dear, but they had, as all such combinations do, given the lie to their claim that they could not produce it at a cost which would enable them to sell it cheaper, by exporting in 1868 some 500,000 bushels, which they had sold in competition with foreign salt, and by offering the New England fishermen who were allowed to import salt without duty, prices as low as those abroad; that is, they had one price for the land and another for the sea, one for Canada and another for the United States.

Mr. Wells's evidence on the salt monopoly was complete--it had made a necessity of life dear through a tariff much higher than the internal tax and the higher wage of American labor called for. The greater part of the extra price the consumers were paying was going not into the pockets of the laborers, but into those of the operators.

The report created a great noise and played a big part in the debate on the tariff bill, which General Schenck introduced into the House in February, 1870. That any bill attempted at this juncture should follow the pledges the leaders had given in '62 and '64 to reduce the tariffs as the internal taxes were reduced, would seem evident. But there was no proof that General Schenck and his committee had given more than a passing glance at these pledges. That the tariffs, whose unjust and dangerous excess had been demonstrated, should be corrected, seemed evident--but they were either ignored or only partially readjusted. Thus pig-iron, which undoubtedly would have been amply protected by a duty of .00 a ton, was allowed .00. The revenue was reduced, as it was imperative it should be, by lowering the duties on sugar, tea, and coffee--a "free breakfast table" being the committee's slogan. An animated wrangle followed the introduction of the bill. The leaders on the extreme wings were William D. Kelley of Pennsylvania for the high protectionists, and S. S. Cox of New York for the free traders; while Messrs. Allison of Iowa and Garfield of Ohio led the moderates.

There is no doubt that the basis of Kelley's devotion to protection was his belief that it was for the interest of the American working classes. The improvement of their condition was the passion of his life. Apprenticed as a boy to a Boston printer he had refused to be sent to college lest it might wean him from his class. He wanted to taste with them all the experiences of poverty--to know what it cost for a day laborer to live and rise in America. He had studied law at night, had sought the society of Channing and Emerson, had become a man of influence, but his motive had remained unchanged. The misery he saw in 1857 he charged entirely to the free-trade system. He could not rest until he had found a substitute. He believed he had found it in the "exquisite harmony" of protection.

Having adopted a formula he believed competent to solve all problems, Kelley could support no criticism of its operations. Mr. Wells's demonstration that high tariffs had not restored wool to its old vigor, had been the determining factor in building up the salt monopoly, that the iron men were getting the lion's share of the duty on iron, that we could not build ships if we kept the price of materials so much higher than in other countries, was to him little better than blasphemy. Wells became his pet abomination--a detestation soon after extended to Professor Sumner of Yale, a man and an institution existing, he used to say angrily, for "the stupefaction of the youth of this country!"

In the debate on the Schenck Bill Mr. Kelley's defence of the high tariffs was impassioned and angry. Monopoly, what did he care for monopoly, he cried, when Mr. Allison called his attention to the fact that a certain iron manufacturer whose scale of wages Kelley was praising, had, with the only three other of his kind in the country, agreed upon a list of prices made by adding to the price abroad the duty and a profit on the cost at home. "I do not care what they agreed to do if they are thereby enabling workingmen to keep their children at school, well-fed and comfortably clad, to maintain their seats in church and to lay something up for old age and a rainy day."

"For the sun is a 'foreigner,'" explained Mr. Cox. "He comes from abroad, and we must shut out the light of the sun in order to gratify these Pennsylvania gentlemen who have a monopoly of this article of coal."

The real fight on the Schenck Bill was not, as already said, between Republicans and Democrats; it was as it had been in 1866 and 1867, in the party, between Mr. Kelley and his friends and the moderate protectionists, led by Allison and Garfield. Almost without exception the speakers on this middle ground opened by disclaiming that it was a question of protection or of free trade. It was a question of revenue, of moderate temporary protection, and of keeping promises made in the war. And nearly all of them having thus defined their positions attacked the bill, because it did not summarily cut down the tariffs on salt, iron, leather, coal, lumber, and other articles, where it could be conclusively shown that they were working chiefly for the benefit of the few.

Mr. Allison, who was particularly hard on the excessive duty on iron, wanted a reduction of at least 20 per cent on all leading articles. He knew he differed from the majority of the Ways and Means Committee on this, he said, but--

"It is not a question of political partnership. It is a question of affecting every interest in this country and every class, and because of the great interests involved should receive careful consideration at our hands irrespective of partisanship.... I warn those who insist so pertinaciously upon a retention of these high duties upon necessary articles of consumption that they only hasten the time when a more radical change will be made in our tariff laws. What manufacturers need most of all is stability in legislation, avoiding sudden and sweeping changes. The changes which I have proposed would reduce the revenue only a few million dollars, while to the consumers of manufactures produced they would reduce the cost of those products many million dollars. In my judgment such a policy would revive many industries now languishing, and not interfere with the great industries already established, and which under any change we are likely to make will still be largely protected. Our policy should be so to cheapen manufactured products that we can revive our export trade, now swept away, because we cannot compete with other nations in the markets of the world. If we could restore what we have lost, and in addition greatly enlarge our exportations of manufactures, we should then have an enlarged home market for our agricultural products, which would then be exported in a concentrated form in exchange for other commodities which we do not now and cannot produce."

The debate on the bill occupied the House much of the time from the middle of March until the 6th of June, when it was passed. The Senate took it up at once, and the debate there followed very much the same lines as in the House:--protestation that it was not an academic question--pleas from Mr. Morrill and his friends to remember the war time pledges--warnings against the "smell of monopoly"--plans for removing the causes of the decline of ship-building. In short, the Republicans themselves rehearsed fully and forcibly the injustice in certain tariffs then in force, and asked the party to correct them. All of the correction they got was .00 a ton off pig-iron. Salt, leather, lumber, wool, copper, and other articles were not touched. The relief demanded for the consumer came in the breakfast table. Thus the bill, which the President signed on July 14, reduced the duties on tea about 40 per cent; on coffee, 40 per cent; on sugar of the lower grades, 33 1/3 per cent; on clarified sugars, 21-3/7 and 12 1/2 per cent; on spices from 33 1/3 to 75 per cent. On brandy the reduction was .00 to .00 per gallon, or 33 1/3 per cent; on spirits from grain, 20 per cent. The free list was largely increased, certain important materials for manufacturing, ivory, India rubber, and rags for paper making, being included in a far greater number of unimportant items.

Mr. Kelley and his sympathizers had saved the doctrine of high protection, and they accompanied their victory by a manoeuvre which they evidently hoped would preserve them in the future from the necessity of considering such troublesome arrays of facts about the effects of particular tariffs as those forced upon them in the last four years by Mr. Wells's reports. They persuaded the President to refuse to continue the office of special commissioner of revenue, which Mr. Wells had filled since his appointment by President Lincoln in March, 1865. The majority of Congress deeply deplored this move, and joined in signing a letter to him expressing their appreciation of his services. The wise men of the party realized only too well how they would be crippled without Mr. Wells. It was a loss which time has only intensified. It is not too much to say, that if he had continued to study and expound officially the revenue system for the next twenty years with the same dispassionate thoroughness and clearness that characterized the five years' work he did do, the problem of the equitable distribution of wealth in this country would be much nearer an intelligent solution than it is to-day.

There was no reason to suppose that Mr. Blaine would not keep his promise, nevertheless the suspicion that he was "slippery" in politics was not uncommon, and the Free Trade League concluded to send General Brinkerhoff to Washington to see that the arrangement was carried out.

The new Congress--the Forty-second--opened on March 4, 1871. General Brinkerhoff had made a careful study of the tariff record of the members of the new House and felt sure of a majority, but it was resolved to test the tariff sentiment by a surprise resolution. Bills were prepared putting coal and salt on the free list, and Eugene Hale of Maine was asked to introduce them, under the Monday morning rule. Mr. Hale consented, and Mr. Blaine promised to recognize him. The bills were introduced suddenly as arranged, brought immediately to vote, and, after some skirmishing, passed, to the despair of Mr. Kelley, who, as Mr. Cox said, wailed now like Jeremiah, though in the last session he had talked like Isaiah. "I was in the majority then," said Mr. Kelley, ruefully.

Sure of the House, there now remained only to make sure of Mr. Blaine. As the days went on and the appointments promised were not made, General Brinkerhoff felt more and more uneasy, but said nothing. Finally one day as he was on the floor of the House, Mr. Blaine sent a page to him asking him for an interview:

"He then called someone to the chair," says General Brinkerhoff in his Recollections, "and as he went out of the south door I went out of the north door, and went around and met him. He took me down to the basement and into a room he called his den. He then locked the door and went to a cupboard and brought out some refreshments, and we sat down at a little table.

"After awhile he told me he wanted to talk with me about the Ways and Means Committee, and to ask my opinion in regard to a cast of a committee that was in his mind. He took a pencil and a slip of paper from a drawer and wrote down nine names and then turned it around for me to read. I saw that he kept his finger on the paper, and that he did not intend to let me take it away, and so I took a little time to study its make-up, and get it clearly in my memory. I saw at a glance that he was not carrying out his agreement, because Dawes was at the head as chairman, and not Garfield. I saw also as I looked over the list that a majority of the committee were not revenue reform men, although it was a combination calculated to deceive any one not fully posted on individual records.

"That a breach of faith was meditated was evident enough, but just what to do about it was not so evident, and so I asked questions to gain time as well as information. I asked him why Dawes instead of Garfield was at the head. 'That is what I want to talk about especially, for I find it will make trouble to give Garfield the chairmanship, and it seems to me that Dawes is sufficiently in harmony with you people to be satisfactory, and the very fact that he is not an extreme man will be an advantage to you in the House.' He said Garfield had not had sufficient service on the committee to entitle him to promotion over old members like Kelley and Dawes. 'Why,' he said, 'Kelley would take a fit if I put Garfield ahead of him.' 'Possibly, that may be so,' I said, 'but you knew that just as well when we were in New York as you do now, and I am very sure our people would not be willing to substitute Dawes for Garfield in any event, for at heart he is not with us any more than Kelley.'

"The fact was there were only four men on his list who were not protectionists, and after discussing the matter awhile, he said, 'This is not a finality by any means, it is simply tentative and I will make the committee so that it will be satisfactory.' He repeated the word 'tentative' two or three times, but I made up my mind at once that a Ways and Means Committee satisfactory to the revenue reform people would never be made by Mr. Blaine, and so we parted after an hour's talk with the understanding that he would see me again soon."

That evening General Brinkerhoff met Garfield by appointment. "You are not to be chairman of the Ways and Means Committee," he told him. "The protectionists will be in a majority on it."

"You are wrong," Garfield said; "Mr. Blaine has already written me assuring me of my appointment."

"Let me see the letter," said the General. Garfield's face fell. He had not the letter. Mr. Blaine had asked that it be returned because life was uncertain. "You will not be appointed," General Brinkerhoff reiterated. Garfield walked the floor for a few minutes, and then stopping, said: "General Brinkerhoff, if Mr. Blaine does not appoint me chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, he is the basest of men." He was not appointed, but a few days later Mr. Dawes was.

No move could have been made which would have crystallized so effectually the tariff sentiment of the reformers and sent them so surely toward the Democrats as this. All over the country signs of dissatisfaction multiplied. They were only strengthened by other causes of complaint with the party--the failure to secure civil service reform and the awful need of it; the treatment of the South, which had led to a strong movement, headed by Greeley, in favor of general amnesty; the delay in resuming specie payment. These specific causes were intensified by the feeling about Grant. He had utterly disappointed the hopes of those who had looked to him to put an end to the open corruption and raiding which prevailed in Washington at the time of his election, and he had become almost the tool of some of the very worst elements in the party. Dissatisfaction had become abuse, and every evil in the country was laid at his door, an exaggeration Mr. Cox ridiculed in the next campaign by declaring, "I lay the horse distemper to Grant. Run me as an anti-epizo?tic candidate at large."

Between the real issues and the dissatisfaction with Grant there seemed reason enough for revolt, particularly to the Liberal Republicans of Missouri, who had succeeded in their bolt; and accordingly in January, 1872, they called a meeting of leading reformers in St. Louis. Here it was decided to put forth a declaration of principle and call a national convention in Cincinnati, Ohio, in May, 1872, of all those who felt that the issues were sufficiently important to justify independent action. Among contributing causes to this movement was the revolt in the Republican party, growing out of the impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868, and the attempt to read out of the party the seven Republican Senators who had voted Not Guilty. The continuing proscription of the "seven traitors" offended all persons who upheld the right of private judgment and they naturally rebelled against such party tyranny.

The tariff reformers left Cincinnati in despair and uncertainty--what should they do? A meeting was called at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York and the situation discussed. It was a "bad job," all agreed, but on one point they could meet, that of amnesty. It was worth making a fight for. The Democrats would probably endorse Greeley if they stood by the Cincinnati convention. The meeting wavered and halted until finally late at night Carl Schurz in a speech, which those who heard it declare to have been one of the most eloquent he ever made, turned them to Greeley. The majority decided to waive tariff reform for the time being and join the movement to beat Grant.

The strength and the respectability of the faction which had seceded from the Republican party on tariff reform and kindred issues, alarmed the leaders who had been backing the iron and wool and copper and salt people in their demands. They appreciated that they must do something toward reform or the party would suffer still more seriously. All through the early months of 1872 a struggle went on to get a bill which should cut down the surplus without antagonizing any politically strong special interest. It could not be done. Senator Sherman finally said frankly to the lobbyists who were besieging the committee that it was to their interest to have a reduction made. "In my deliberate judgment," he said, "it is better for the protected industries of the country that this slight reduction of duties should be made rather than to invite a contest which will endanger the whole system."

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