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come from States recently under the thraldom of Slavery, namely, Texas, Arkansas, Kentucky, Georgia, and West Virginia-these States thus furnishing six-eighths of this important committee; and I say this advisedly, for while there are nominally five Republican members, the bill comes solely from the eight Democratic members, not one of the Republicans having been permitted to see the bill, or even to know a single syllable it was to contain until it had been published to the country. All the Republicans on that committee might as well have been at their homes as dancing attendance at the committee-room while this bill was being formulated. It is a delusion to think that there were thirteen members on that committee; there were but eight, the five appointed from manufacturing States and favoring Protection were absolutely ignored; they were not permitted to participate in the work of the committee, and were not recognized as having any right to act or to have a voice in its deliberations; and of the eight practically constituting the committee, six, as I have shown, came from a particular section.

At the close of the debate the following colloquy occurred:

Mr. McComas (Rep.). Has any friend of this bill in this debate uttered one sentence in favor of the American Tariff system which discriminates in favor of the home producer and laborer?

Mr. Hooker (Dem.). No; there was no one, and you will not find any Democrat to utter one.

The bill was a sectional one in the extreme, having free wool, free lumber, free salt, free stone, free meat, and free vegetables, all products of the North, while rice, sugar, and peanuts, products of the South, were left with a high duty. This one feature of the bill represents its inconsistencies and incongruities. Mr. McKinley, in his great speech upon the bill conceded the necessity of reducing the revenue of the Government, but showed plainly that it should not be made in the manner proposed by the bill. He showed its pernicious. ness, particularly in the introduction of the ad valorem system to take the place of specific duties. He concluded his speech as follows:

This measure is not called for by the people; it is not an American measure; it is inspired by importers and foreign producers,

VOL. II.-12.

most of them aliens, who want to diminish our trade and increase their own; who want to decrease our prosperity and augment theirs, and who have no interest in this country except what they can make out of it. To this is added the influence of the professors in some of our institutions of learning, who teach the science contained in books and not that of practical business. I would rather have my political economy founded upon the every-day experience of the puddler or the potter than the learning of the professor, the farmer and factory hand than the college faculty. Then there is another class who want Protective Tariffs overthrown. They are the men of independent wealth, with settled and steady incomes, who want everything cheap but currency; the value of everything clipped but coin-cheap labor but dear money. These are the elements which are arrayed against us.

Mr. Randall of Pennsylvania made his last Protection speech in the House of Representatives in opposition to the Mills bill, while Mr. Reed of Maine, as well as Mr. McKinley, by their refutation of the Democratic contentions, made themselves famous. Perhaps no illustration, of the many used by Mr. Reed in his famous speech, will be longer remembered than the following, which so well pictures the Free-Trader who would give up our home market in exchange for some foreign market, the gain and worth of which is visionary :

Once there was a dog. He was a nice little dog. Nothing the matter with him except a few foolish Free-Trade ideas in his head. He was trotting along happy as the day, for he had in his mouth a nice shoulder of succulent mutton. By and by he came to a stream bridged by a plank. He trotted along, and, looking over the side of the plank, he saw the markets of the world and dived for them. A minute after he was crawling up the bank the wettest, the sickest, the nastiest, the most muttonless dog that ever swam ashore.

The bill passed the House by a vote of 162 to 149, 14 not voting. The only Republicans who voted for the bill were Brower of North Carolina, Fitch of New York, and Nelson of Minnesota. The only Democrats who voted against it were Bliss, Greenman, and Merriman of New York, and Sowden

The Senate Bill.

179

Mr. Randall of Pennsylvania was paired

of Pennsylvania. against the bill. The House bill when it reached the Senate was referred to the Finance Committee, the Republican majority of which prepared a substitute, which was reported in the form of an amendment, October 3d. It was taken up on October 8th, the opening speech being made by Mr. Allison of Iowa, who gave a full explanation of the Senate bill. It was not, however, discussed to any great length, and there was no attempt to push it to a vote. The Senate bill, recognizing the necessity for a reduction of revenue, did this through the internal revenue provisions, while the import duties of the House bill were, as a whole, increased with the exception of the Tariff on sugar, which was cut about one half. The bill, of course, died with the adjournment of the session and Congress.

Roscoe Conkling died on April 18, 1888. After his retirement from the Senate, Mr. Conkling entered private life, resuming the practice of law in New York City. His name was sent to the Senate by President Arthur in 1882 for a place on the bench on the United States Supreme Court, but Mr. Conkling declined.

CHAPTER VIII,

CONVENTIONS AND CAMPAIGN OF 1888-THE TARIFF ISSUEELECTION OF BENJAMIN HARRISON.

HE ninth Republican National Convention was held at
Chicago beginning Tuesday, June 19, 1888. B. F.

Jones, chairman of the National Committee called the convention to order, and concluded his address as follows:

Through the criminal folly of certain professed Republicans, and by fraud and duplicity on the part of the Democratic party, our honored and gallant standard bearers in 1884 were defeated. Fortunately for the country, we still have the benefit of the wise laws passed by the Republican party, and still have a majority in the Senate of the United States, which majority has prevented unwise legislation. We are again confronted with this same Democratic party, the mother of all the evils from which this country has suffered, asking for the power to control and direct its future course, and we find that the same element which first led it astray by its malign influence, and dominated it down to the grievous days of the Rebellion, is again in full control of its affairs. If a majority of the American voters favor the giving away of the home market, incomparably the best in the world, and the forcing of our people, now the most prosperous and happy on the face of the earth, into competition with and down to a level with the cheapest, poorest, and most miserable of our foreign rivals, the Democratic reactionary doctrines will prevail. If not, the Republican party will resume its authority, and successfully lead this great country, with its beneficent institutions, toward that sublime goal which all patriots believe to be its Heaven-ordained destiny. I have no doubt of the result.

After

prayer, Samuel Fessenden, secretary of the national

Chairman Thurston's Address.

181

committee, read the call which had been made from Washington, December 9, 1887.

John M. Thurston of Nebraska was chosen as temporary chairman. The temporary secretaries selected were Charles W. Clisbee of Michigan, Michael Griffin of Wisconsin, and William Ruel of Tennessee. Among other things Mr. Thurston said in his address to the convention:

We enter upon the proceedings of this convention prepared to submit individual judgment to the wisdom of the majority, and to lay down personal preferences on the altar of party success. When our candidates are nominated we will all join, heart and soul, in the grand chorus of rejoicing; and the rainbow of our harmony will give certain promise of a victorious morning in November. When the Democratic party, at the close of the last Presidential election,robbed us of a victory honestly and fairly won, we patiently waited for the certain coming of the justice of the years. We hoped and believed that 1888 would right the great political wrong of 1884,right it, not only for the Republican party, but for the grand and glorious candidates whose names were the inspiration of that wonderful campaign. The wisdom of an all-wise Providence has otherwise decreed. One of them-that citizen soldier, that warrior statesman, the Black Eagle of Illinois, has been summoned by the Silent Messenger to report to his old commander beyond the river; but John A. Logan-dead in the body-lives in the illuminated pages of his country's most splendid history-lives in the grateful love of a free people whose union he so gallantly fought to preserve lives in the blessings of a downtrodden race whose freedom he so manfully struggled to achieve-lives in the future song and story of a hero-worshiping world; and along the highway of the nation's glory, side by side with old John Brown, Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant, his soul goes marching on. The other that gallant leader, that chevalier of American politics, the glory of Republicanism and the nightmare of Democracy, our Henry of Navarre is seeking in foreign travel needed relaxation and rest from the cares and responsibilities of long public life and service. With the infinite magnanimity of his incomparable greatness he has denied us the privilege of supporting him in this convention. Holding above all other things party harmony and success, he has stepped from the certain ladder of his laudable ambition that some other

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