domestic industries will alike diminish, and the latter in many instances disappear. . . . In all continental nations excepting the Netherlands ad valorem tariffs have been substantially discarded. France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Sweden and Norway, Russia, Switzerland, Belgium, Portugal, and Spain, as the result of long experience with both systems, have settled down to the collection of their customs revenues almost wholly to a specific basis. It is more than folly, therefore, to attempt to foist upon this country a system condemned by a century of our own history and the experience of the leading European nations.

"It is not surprising, however, that the Party of Free Trade in the United States should make this method of levying duties the leading feature of its policy. It is a fit accompaniment to this Bill. It removes the last safeguard to American industries, and strikes down the last hope for our protective system. If there was nothing else in this measure deserving public condemnation, this alone ought to be sufficient to insure its overwhelming defeat.

"But the members of the majority seek to secure public approval for the destruction of specific duties by pluming themselves with a show of lessened ad valorems, hoping thereby to divert public attention and secure popular applause. Let me say that the

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masses of the people, however, at this time are not specially enthusiastic over the prospects of lower ad valorems. Our workmen are not searching for low ad valorems, but for employment. Shivering by desolate hearths over the expiring embers of the last handful of coal, they are not solicitous about ad valorem, but fuel. Starving families, clutching for the last morsel of food, cannot be lulled into forgetfulness of present misery by the announcement of lower ad valorems on the necessities of life. Tramping the streets, out of employment, receiving alms, lower ad valorems will not heal the wounded pride of the brave men who never before were dependent on public charity. The laboring people of this country ask not lower ad valorems, but work. They prefer high ad valorems, constant employment, and abundant wages, to low ad valorems, idleness, and want. . . .

"I implore you to abandon this suicidal policy. Have you not pursued it far enough to become convinced of its disastrous consequences? It is no longer an experiment,-it has become a public crime. You have it within your power instantly to relieve this appalling situation. You have only to substitute for the pending measure a joint resolution declaratory of your purpose to maintain existing law in full force and effect during the continuance of this Administration, and business activity would instantly take the place of

business depression. It would arrest the slaughter of our flocks, open our mines, relight the fires of our furnaces, unchain the wheels of our industries, start every spindle and loom; while whistles and factory bells would call the tramping, starving millions back from enforced idleness to profitable employment, and the American Republic would leap with a bound to its accustomed place in the van of industrial nations."

As Burrows came to a close, the applause upon the floor and in the galleries was so stupendous and prolonged that the speaker was obliged to call the House to order. "The Chair begs to remind our visiting friends in the galleries," he said, "that such demonstrations are not allowable under the rules, and a repetition of them will warrant the Chair in having the galleries cleared. The Sergeant-at-Arms will be directed to remove visitors from the galleries unless they cease their demonstrations."

To this stricture a member of the House retorted, "They vote, Mr. Speaker!"

The Wilson Bill was passed by the House by a vote of nearly two to one. Seventeen Democrats voted against it, and this dissension presented it to the Upper House without the united backing of the majority Party of the Lower. In the Senate, the Democrats had a working majority of only three over the Republicans and Populists combined, and here Sen

ator Gorman, of Maryland, and Senator Bryce, of Ohio, started in to modify the Bill in principle as well as in detail. By the time iron ore, coal, and sugar were taken off the free list, specific duties on many commodities restored in place of ad valorems, and rates generally advanced upon many other articles, the Bill as returned to the House was hardly recognizable. President Cleveland declared that the distorted document represented "Party perfidy and Party dishonor." The Democrats had shown themselves clearly afraid to break away from Protection, and the result of the contest left them in a position as undignified as it was humiliating. Even friends of tariff revision in the Party admitted that it would have been better to continue the McKinley Tariff rather than to endorse this nondescript attempt at reform.

CHAPTER XII

CURRENCY. 1874-1896

WE saw in an earlier chapter' that the financial

panic of 1873 turned the attention of the

country away from the reconstruction of the South, and focused it upon the subject of the Currency. We also saw the far-reaching political effect of this reaction in throwing the control of Congress in the elections of 1874 into Democratic hands for the first time since 1860. Burrows, therefore, received the force of this reaction as his baptism in political finance. He had taken part, as a fledgling in the Forty-third Congress, in the discussion of the "Inflation Bill," and had paid his penalty for standing behind the greenback; from the side lines he had watched Secretary Bristow force the Bill for the resumption of specie payments through the expiring Forty-seventh Congress, recommending, (1) a system of free banking, (2) the retiring of greenbacks equal to eighty per cent. of the new bank notes issued until the $382,000,000 of greenbacks in existence should be reduced to $300,000,000, (3) the withdrawal of fractional

1 See ante, page 151.