CHAPTER XII.McKINLEY IN CONGRESS.

No man ever approached the gates of public life under circumstances more discouraging than those which confronted William McKinley when, in 1876, his friends suggested him as a candidate for congress. Yet no man ever achieved a more signal triumph at the polls, nor a more glorious career in the halls of legislation. He served fourteen years in Congress. In that time he passed from the modest position of a “first termer”—one of the majority which never returns—to the chairmanship of the Ways and Means committee, a place that has been described as more powerful than that of the President of the United States. Certainly in the effecting of legislation, in the expression of national policy, in raising revenues and shaping the course of government there is no position comparable to it in the United States—probably in any country on earth.

It is interesting to observe in the beginning that Major McKinley’s start in congressional life was in itself a tribute to his popularity. When he first launched into the profession of the law at Canton he won early prominence among his brethren of the bar, and a position of influence in his party. And when the managers of that party came to make up their county ticket in 1868, they selected William McKinley, Jr., as their candidate for prosecuting attorney. The county was strongly Democratic, and it was only on occasion, even through the years of the war, that Republicans could capture a county office. Anything like sagacity on the part of the county Democrats in naming their candidates had been certain to preclude the possibility of electing a Republican. It seemed quite hopeless that young McKinley could capture the office of prosecuting attorney from his opponent—a man of experience and ability.

But in the few years Major McKinley had lived in Stark county he had been constantly winning friends. And one reason he won them was that he deserved them. And the chief reason that he held them was because he deserved their adhesion. For while he was making acquaintances all over the county, widening his circle of acquaintance in the city, always urbane, courteous, affable and yet dignified, he was preparing to discharge the duties they would lay upon him.

It has been stated in another part of this work that Major McKinley won in the election. He became prosecuting attorney, though not another man on his ticket was elected. His victory surprised most of the people; but there were some, both in his own party and in the opposition, who recognized the promise of a man of power, and prepared the way for him.

So, in 1876, when his friends cast about for a congressional candidate, this man who had led a forlorn hope for them in a less notable fight eight years before seemed the man most likely to make a creditable showing.

There was little hope of electing him. The district, the old Ohio Eighteenth, was 1,800 strong Democratic. The Democratic nominee was the then incumbent, and he had made a record which pleased his constituents. Besides, the tariff was largely the issue of the campaign and Mr. Tilden’s slogan: “A tariff for revenue only” was regarded as expressing a popular sentiment. That other slogan, “Tilden and Reform” had lost some of its effectiveness in the light of the Erie canal investigation at Albany; but the tariff had more than taken its place in the popular thought.

Besides, Major McKinley was one of the very few men in the nation who boldly, and without apology or subterfuge, contended for the principle of protection. It has been said elsewhere in this book that he engaged in a debate on the tariff shortly after returning from the army, and before he left his old home town of Poland. He had studied the question even then, and had become convinced that the present prosperity and future welfare of the nation demanded a policy of high tariff, and would for a number of years.

He lost that debate because the judges, smarting under the burden of war taxes, accepted the popular clamor for a reduction—and decided, without regard to the facts presented or argument deduced, that Major McKinley’s opponent had won.

It had been observed in Stark county, since his location at Canton, that Major McKinley held to his daring theory of protection in all his political speeches. Most other Republicans felt the need of trimming, and conceded that protection was bad in policy, if not wrong in morals; and promised the people that it would be abolished.

That was the condition in the Eighteenth District in the summer of 1876, when Major William McKinley was nominated to run against Judge L. D. Woodsworth, a wheelhorse of Democracy in Ohio.

As in 1868, when he was candidate for prosecuting attorney of Stark county, so now, there was little hope of his election. The majority seemedtoo great to be overcome. But it was overcome. And when the votes were counted it was found that the Republican nominee had a clear majority of 1,300—a change of 3,100 votes from the preceding congressional election.

And it will be remembered that this was in the face of Major McKinley’s contention for the policy of protection. He met every sophistry of his opponents with arguments which showed him a thorough master of his subject, and with a skill in debate which disarmed enmity even among his opposers.

So significant a victory won for the young man the attention of the nation; and the arrival in Washington of this strong, courageous champion of a great public policy was occasion for gratulation among the men who saw beyond the immediate present, and were building for the future of the nation—preparing the Republic for that day when it must abandon its hermitage, and take place among the mighty nations of the earth. And they gave him every encouragement. But even they—even Judge Kelley, of Pennsylvania, whose protectionism was less genuine because more a matter of personal interest—found at the very beginning that they could give William McKinley nothing, and that they would shortly be asking favors of him.

Sociologists may interest themselves with speculations on the influences which contributed to William McKinley’s success as a statesman. But it is doubtful if they find anything more significant than the sorrow which came to him at this period. His two daughters were dead. His wife had suffered the blow from which she was never to recover; and this man’s entry upon national legislation was through the gates of a great sorrow. Maybe it refined him, and purified his nature of whatever dross it contained. Maybe it intensified his thought, and added the sense of a sacred responsibility to him as a public man. He had no children. He knew he never again would hear the lisping call of “Father.” And in the holy bereavement of that hour, he must—perhaps unconsciously—have devoted himself to the service of his country. There was no need to “trim,” to—

“Crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,That thrift might follow fawning.”

“Crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,

That thrift might follow fawning.”

He had but one ambition now, and that was so to live as a public man that the verdict of the nation might be: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

That first term in Congress was judiciously utilized by William McKinley.He knew, with that prescience which belongs to the truly great, that this was his field, that he would return to it, that no small considerations of oppositions and repeated elections could keep him from the fulfillment of that duty, the discharge of that task, for which all his life had been but preparation.

In the first session he made no speech. He was not even on a committee of importance. But his known position as a protectionist made him a man to be consulted, and his quickly recognized ability made him—a first termer—share in the shaping of legislation.

That was a Democratic Congress, with Samuel J. Randall in the speaker’s chair. And the young man from Ohio waited at the portals of opportunity, making himself ready for the day when they should open and admit him.

He made a speech on the floor of the house. He was little considered by the superficial and unthinking. Yet they confessed in committee the influence of his quiet power. He made himself master of every detail. He knew all that was to be known about the subjects that came before him and his confreres. And in a courteous, dignified but effective manner he said the right word in due season, and every man of them felt the presence of greatness.

His first speech was delivered in the spring of 1878. The question of tariff had loomed large in the eyes of the nation. It had been made an issue. No man could escape it. Seekers for popular applause, for the present profits that might be secured, exhausted themselves coining verbal assaults on the policy of protection. The men on the Democratic side, east and west, were almost a unit for a revision which meant a repeal. The time came later when most eastern Democrats took issue with their brothers from the West, as to the wisdom of protection. But in that day the strongest assault was made by a New York man—Fernando Wood.

He was one of the ablest Democrats in Congress. A sharp, shrewd man, plausible in his address, skillful in his arraignment, and attractive as a debater. He had, in his bill, reflected well the popular clamor of demagogues throughout the country who could not see the demands or the possibilities of the future. And the Wood tariff bill was sailing serene through the lower house, its friends jubilant, its supporters becoming jealous of the lucky New Yorker—when, one day William McKinley, of Ohio, got the floor, and began an argument against the bill. That frightened no one. They wantedsome opposition. They wanted the sport of a game fight, since they were sure they could not be defeated.

But when they had listened fifteen minutes they saw this young man, this unconsidered legislator, was master of the province upon which they had entered. He knew far more about the industrial and commercial conditions of the country than did they. He was infinitely better equipped than they in the matter of economics. And he coined his ideas in sentences so impressive that the jealous men were comforted. They were not frightened on account of the bill, for they were confident in the possession of an invincible majority. But they saw Fernando Wood at last had a foeman worthy of his steel.

At the end of half an hour a movement was made to silence him. But other debaters on the Republican side saw an advocate had arisen more powerful than they. They gave him their time and he went on. Friends of the bill tried to badger him with questions. But he met every thrust with a dignity which disarmed and a reply which silenced them.

And when William McKinley sat down, the Wood bill was defeated, and nothing like it was ever again offered in the American House of Representatives.

It was a significant part of his work that day—a characteristic of his labors through life—that results were felt in the future. From that day the free trade army was divided. The West, neither possessing considerable industries nor at the time appreciating their value, found itself divided from the East. From that day no great opponent of protection has come from the East to the halls of Congress. And—what is more to the point—no strong popular sentiment supporting free trade has flourished in the populous Atlantic states.

“A house divided against itself can not stand.” How then shall an army divided against itself hope to march victorious?

But “tariff reform” still looked good as an issue, and the opponents of protection continued their crusade against it. They could not believe they would be defeated. They insisted that three thousand miles of ocean was enough protection for the American manufacturer. They pointed out that the price of each protected article was increased to the American consumer by just the amount of the protection tax. They refused to see that the consumer would, under a national policy which should strengthen industries, be better able to pay the increased price than the lower price under free trade. They were short-sighted. And they were confident the masses of the peoplewere as short-sighted as themselves, and would overwhelmingly sustain them.

So their clamor continued.

So the Republicans in 1882, advised and counselled by Congressman McKinley, provided for a tariff commission which should investigate the whole question and recommend legislation that should settle the national policy once and for all. The commission was appointed by President Arthur, but before it could report the tacit agreement was broken, and William R. Morrison, of Illinois, brought forward, in 1884, his remarkable bill for a 20 per cent “horizontal reduction” of the tariff. The house was again Democratic, but William McKinley, overcoming successive gerrymanders in Ohio, was still in the house, now advanced to a position of influence and importance; and no “horizontal reduction” could take place while he was there, no matter what the political complexion of the House might be. Against a hostile majority, he led the forces of protection’s friends. A part of his address on that occasion is as follows:

“What can be said of the capacity of the majority of the Committee on Ways and Means as evidenced by the bill now before us? It is a confession upon its face of absolute incapacity to grapple with the great subject. The Morrison bill will never be suspected of having passed the scrutiny of intelligent experts like the Tariff Commission. This is a revision by the crosscut process. It gives no evidences of the expert’s skill. It is the invention of indolence—I will not say of ignorance, for the gentlemen of the majority of the Committee on Ways and Means are competent to prepare a tariff bill. I repeat, it is not only the invention of indolence, but it is the mechanism of a botch workman. A thousand times better refer the question to an intelligent Commission, which will study the question in its relations to the revenues and industries of the country, than to submit to a bill like this.

“They have determined upon doing something, no matter how mischievous, that looks to the reduction of import duties; and doing it, too, in spite of the fact that not a single request has come either from the great producing or great consuming classes of the United States for any change in the direction proposed. With the power in their hands they have determined to put the knife in, no matter where it cuts nor how much blood it draws. It is the volunteer surgeon, unbidden, insisting upon using the knife upon a body that is strong and healthy; needing only rest and release from the quack whose skill is limited to the horizontal amputation, and whose science is barren of either knowledge or discrimination. And then it is not to stopwith one horizontal slash; it is to be followed by another and still another, until there is nothing left either of life or hope. And the doctrinaires will then have seen an exemplification of their pet science in the destruction of the great productive interests of the country, and “the starving poor,” as denominated by the majority, will be found without work, shelter or food. The sentiment of this country is against any such indiscriminate proposition. The petitions before the Ways and Means Committee from twenty to thirty States of this Union appeal to Congress to let the tariff rest where it is, in general, while others are equally importunate to have the duties on two or three classes of American products raised. The laboring men are unanimous against this bill. These appeals should not go unheeded. The farmers for whom you talk so eloquently, have not asked for it. There is no appeal from any American interest for this legislation.

“It is well, if this bill is to go into force, that on yesterday the other branch of Congress, the Senate, passed a Bankruptcy bill. It is a fitting corollary to the Morrison bill; it is a proper and a necessary companion. The Senate has done wisely, in anticipation of our action here, in providing legal means for settling with creditors, for wiping out balances, and rolling from the shoulders of our people the crushing burdens which this bill will impose.”

And in spite of a Democratic majority the Morrison bill failed. That thrust—“the invention of indolence”—went home; and the nation resented the slipshod manner in which its public servants had done their work. And the Representative from Illinois brought from the wreck of his losing battle no more than the comfort of realizing that to the end of his life he would be known by the appropriate title, “Horizontal Bill Morrison.”

But the crusade against protection was too attractive to abandon. In 1888, the House being again Democratic, Roger Q. Mills of Texas, was made chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and he brought in a bill that expressed really all that was best in the opposition’s case. But he made the fatal mistake of presenting a bill prepared by his political associates alone. It was more fair, more broad in its scope, more statesmanlike than anything that had previously emanated from the camp of free traders. But he had invited no Republican member of the committee to its preparation, and excluded all who would advise or instruct him. He might have welcomed them in safety, for he had the votes at his back to defeat every recommendation they might make, and adopt every paragraph that commended itself to him. But he saw fit to refuse audience to representatives of industrialconcerns who knew far more of the subject than did Mr. Mills or his advisers, and an opposition suddenly sprung up which could not be overcome. Mr. McKinley made his most telling point against the Mills bill, in these burning words:

“The industries of the country, located in every section of the Union, representing vast interests closely related to the prosperity of the country, touching practically every home and fireside in the land, which were to be affected by the bill, were denied a hearing; the majority shut the doors of the committee against all examinations of producers, consumers and experts, whose testimony might have enlightened the committee. The farmers, whose investments and products were to be disastrously dealt with, were denied an opportunity to address the committee. The workingmen of the country, whose wages were at stake, were denied audience. The Representatives on the floor of the House were not permitted to voice the wants of their constituents. Proposing a grave measure, which would affect all of the people in their employments, their labor and their incomes, the majority persistently refused the people the right of hearing and discussion; denied them the simple privilege of presenting reasons and arguments against their proposed action.”

The report of the minority of the Ways and Means Committee was prepared and presented by Mr. McKinley. He had come to be recognized as the best equipped and most formidable protectionist in Congress, and the report he submitted fully sustained that opinion. From that report the following extract will still be read with profound interest:

“The bill is a radical reversal of the tariff policy of the country which for the most part has prevailed since the foundation of the Government, and under which we have made industrial and agricultural progress without a parallel in the world’s history. If enacted into law, it will disturb every branch of business, retard manufacturing and agricultural prosperity, and seriously impair our industrial independence. It undertakes to revise our entire revenue system; substantially all of the tariff schedules are affected; both classification and rates are changed. Specific duties are in many cases changed toad valorem, which all experience has shown is productive of frauds and undervaluations. It does not correct the irregularities of the present tariff; it only aggravates them. It introduces uncertainties in interpretation, which will embarrass its administration, promote contention and litigation, and give to the customs officers a latitude of construction which will produce endless controversy and confusion. It is marked with a sectionalismwhich every patriotic citizen must deplore. Its construction takes no account of the element of labor which enters into production, and in a number of instances makes the finished or advanced product free, or dutiable at a less rate than the material from which it is made. ‘The poor man’s blanket,’ which the majority has made a burning issue for so many years, is made to bear the same rate of duty as the rich man’s. More than one-third of the free list is made up from the products of the farm, the forest and the mine; from products which are now dutiable at the minimum rates, ranging from seven to twenty-five per cent. and even this slight protection, so essential, is to be taken from the farmers, the lumbermen and the quarrymen.”

But it was not until the bill was put upon its passage that he rose to his greatest height as a debater and as a statesman. Men old in public life concede that the speech he made, May 18, 1888, was the greatest ever delivered on a purely economic question in the halls of the American Congress. It did more to fix the policy of protectionism unalterably upon the country than any other one influence. It did more to justify the protectionists of the past, and to pave the way for whatever great policy might come after when new occasions brought new duties, when a subsequent era should arise, than all the campaigning and all the labors in or out of Congress that the nation had known. Here are some extracts from that notable address:

“What is a protective tariff? It is a tariff upon foreign imports so adjusted as to secure the necessary revenue, and judiciously imposed upon those foreign products the like of which are produced at home, or the like of which we are capable of producing at home. It imposes the duty upon the competing foreign product; it makes it bear the burden or duty, and, as far as possible, luxuries only excepted, permits the noncompeting foreign product to come in free of duty. Articles of common use, comfort and necessity, which we cannot produce here, it sends to the people untaxed and free from custom-house exactions. Tea, coffee, spices and drugs are such articles, and under our system are upon the free list. It says to our foreign competitor: If you want to bring your merchandise here, your farm products here, your coal and iron ore, your wool, your salt, your pottery, your glass, your cottons and woolens, and sell alongside of our producers in our markets, we will make your product bear a duty; in effect, pay for the privilege of doing it. Our kind of tariff makes the competing foreign article carry the burden, draw the load, supply the revenue; and in performing this essential office it encourages at the same time our own industries and protectsour own people in their chosen employments. That is the mission and purpose of a protective tariff. That is what we mean to maintain, and any measure which will destroy it we shall firmly resist; and if beaten on this floor, we will appeal from your decision to the people, before whom parties and policies must at last be tried. We have free trade among ourselves throughout thirty-eight States and the Territories, and among sixty millions of people. Absolute freedom of exchange within our own borders and among our own citizens, is the law of the Republic. Reasonable taxation and restraint upon those without is the dictate of enlightened patriotism and the doctrine of the Republican party.

“Free trade in the United States is founded upon a community of equalities and reciprocities. It is like the unrestrained freedom and reciprocal relations and obligations of a family. Here we are one country, one language, one allegiance, one standard of citizenship, one flag, one Constitution, one Nation, one destiny. It is otherwise with foreign nations, each a separate organism, a distinct and independent political society, organized for its own, to protect its own, and work out its own destiny. We deny to those foreign nations free trade with us upon equal terms with our own producers. The foreign producer has no right or claim to equality with our own. He is not amenable to our laws. There are resting upon him none of the obligations of citizenship. He pays no taxes. He performs no civil duties; he is subject to no demands for military service. He is exempt from State, county and municipal obligations. He contributes nothing to the support, the progress and glory of the Nation. Why should he enjoy unrestrained equal privileges and profits in our markets with our producers, our labor and our taxpayers? Let the gentleman who follows me answer. We put a burden upon his productions, we discriminate against his merchandise, because he is alien to us and our interests, and we do it to protect our own, defend our own, preserve our own, who are always with us in adversity and prosperity, in sympathy and purpose, and, if necessary, in sacrifice. That is the principle which governs us. I submit it is a patriotic and righteous one. In our country each citizen competes with the other in free and unresentful rivalry, while with the rest of the world all are united and together in resisting outside competition as we would foreign interference.

“Free foreign trade admits the foreigner to equal privileges with our own citizens. It invites the product of foreign cheap labor to this market in competition with the domestic product, representing higher and better paid labor. It results in giving our money, our manufactures and our markets toother nations, to the injury of our labors, our trades people and our farmers. Protection keeps money, markets and manufactures at home for the benefit of our own people. It is scarcely worth while to more than state the proposition that taxation upon a foreign competing product is more easily paid and less burdensome than taxation upon the noncompeting product. In the latter it is always added to the foreign cost, and therefore paid by the consumer, while in the former, where the duty is upon the competing product, it is largely paid in the form of diminished profits to the foreign producer. It would be burdensome beyond endurance to collect our taxes from the products, professions and labor of our own people.

“There is no conflict of interests and should be none between the several classes of producers and the consumers in the United States. Their interests are one, interrelated and interdependent. That which benefits one benefits all; one man’s work has relation to every other man’s work in the same community; each is an essential part of the grand result to be attained, and that statesmanship which would seek to array the one against the other for any purpose, is narrow, unworthy and unpatriotic. The President’s message is unhappily in that direction. The discussion had on this floor takes that turn. Both have been calculated to create antagonisms where none existed. The farmer, the manufacturer, the laborer, the tradesman, the producer and the consumer all have a common interest in the maintenance of a protective tariff. All are alike and equally favored by the system which you seek to overthrow. It is a National system, broad and universal in its application; if otherwise, it should be abandoned. It cannot be invoked for one section or one interest, to the exclusion of others. It must be general in its application within the contemplation of the principle upon which the system is founded. We have been living under it for twenty-seven continuous years, and it can be asserted with confidence that no country in the world has achieved such industrial advancement, and such marvelous progress in art, science and civilization, as ours. Tested by its results, it has surpassed all other revenue systems.

“From 1789 to 1888, a period of ninety-nine years, there has been forty-seven years when a Democratic revenue-tariff policy has prevailed, and fifty-two years under the protective policy, and it is a noteworthy fact that the most progressive and prosperous periods of our history in every department of human effort and material development were during the fifty-two years when the protective party was in control and protective tariffs were maintained; and the most disastrous years—years of want and wretchedness, ruinand retrogression, eventuating in insufficient revenues and shattered credits, individual and National—were during the free trade or revenue-tariff eras of our history. No man lives who passed through any of the latter periods but would dread their return and would flee from them as he would escape from fire and pestilence; and I believe the party which promotes their return will merit and receive popular condemnation. What is the trouble with our present condition? No country can point to greater prosperity or more enduring evidences of substantial progress among all the people. Too much money is being collected, it is said. We say, stop it; not by indiscriminate and vicious legislation, but by simple business methods. Do it on simple, practical lines, and we will help you. Buy up the bonds, objectionable as it may be, and pay the Nation’s debt, if you cannot reduce taxation. You could have done this long ago. Nobody is chargeable for the failure and delay but your own administration.

“Who is objecting to our protective system? From what quarter does the complaint come? Not from the enterprising American citizen; not from the manufacturer; not from the laborer, whose wages it improves; not from the consumer, for he is fully satisfied, because under it he buys a cheaper and better product than he did under the other system; not from the farmer, for he finds among the employes of the protected industries his best and most reliable customers; not from the merchant or the tradesman, for every hive of industry increases the number of his customers and enlarges the volume of his trade. Few, indeed, have been the petitions presented to this House asking for any reduction of duties upon imports. None, that I have ever seen or heard of, and I have watched with the deepest interest the number and character of these petitions, that I might gather from them the drift of public sentiment. I say I have seen none asking for the passage of this bill, or for any such departure from the fiscal policy of the Government so long recognized and followed, while against this legislation there has been no limit to petitions, memorials, prayers and protests, from the producer and consumer alike. This measure is not called for by the people; it is not an American measure; it is inspired by importers and foreign producers, 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 everyday experiencesof the puddler or the potter, than the learning of the professor, or 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.

“Men whose capital is invested in productive enterprises, who take the risks of business, men who expend their capital and energy in the development of our resources, are in favor of the maintenance of the protective system. The farmer, the rice-grower, the miner, the vast army of wage-earners from one end of the country to the other, the chief producers of wealth, men whose capital is their brain and muscle, who aspire to better their condition and elevate themselves and their fellows; the young man whose future is yet before him, and which he must carve out with his hand and head, who is without the aid of fortune or of a long ancestral line—these are our steadfast allies in this great contest for the preservation of the American system. Experience and results in our own country are the best advisers, and they vindicate beyond the possibilities of dispute the worth and wisdom of the system.”

But the bill passed the House.

There were members enough on the Democratic side of carry it through, though by a perilously small majority.

The senate, however, could not be brought to an approval, and the Mills bill failed there.

That, however, was but the beginning of William McKinley’s victory. So strong a case had he made for protection that in 1888 his party leaders had been roused to appreciate the stupendous interests involved in the issue. They ceased to temporize, to avoid, to “trim.” They had been on the defensive for twenty years. They took in 1888 the aggressive, made protection the issue, named General Harrison as their candidate, and echoing William McKinley’s arguments in every school district of the nation, achieved a splendid victory.

But it was wholly due to the wisdom and foresight, the ability and eloquence of Major William McKinley, of Ohio.

Then came his crowning work. That was the measure which has taken its place in the history of the nation as “the McKinley Tariff Law.” It was adopted in May, 1890, and took effect October 6 of the same year.

There is no royal road to success, no short cut-off to eminence. Whateveris of great worth must cost great labor. William McKinley had put into his preparation for that work all the years of his adult life. He knew the subject as no other man in the nation knew it. And when, as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee at last he was commissioned to write a tariff bill, he gave himself wholly and utterly to the task. No laborer in the mills which his policy safeguarded put in so many hours daily as did William McKinley in the preparation of that great measure. He worked all day in Committee or on the floor of the House, consuming nervous force in a manner which would have utterly broken down a less magnificent physique than his own. And then every night he received representatives of various industries from all over the nation—from the farms, from the mines, from the mills, from the stores, from the offices of transportation companies. And they testified a thousand times that he knew their case far better than did they. Yet he heard them patiently, respectfully, discussed the schedules with them, and out of all the information he could gather produced that bill which stands for the highest expression of statesmanship any republic has ever known.

It was characteristic of the man that he should in the very van of his argument place a statement that would challenge the general attention of the public, regardless of party. No reader who recognizes the significance of effective work in debate can fail to catch the value of these calm, deliberate sentences:

“If any one thing was settled by the election of 1888, it was that the protective policy, as promulgated in the Republican platform, and heretofore inaugurated and maintained by the Republican party, should be secured in any fiscal legislation to be had by the Congress chosen in that great contest and upon that mastering issue. I have interpreted that victory to mean, and the majority in this House and in the Senate to mean, that a revision of the tariff is not only demanded by the votes of the people, but that such revision should be on the line and in full recognition of the principle and purpose of protection. The people have spoken; they want their will registered and their decree embodied in public legislation. The bill which the Committee on Ways and Means have presented is their answer and interpretation of that victory, and in accordance with its spirit and letter and purpose. We have not been compelled to abolish the internal-revenue system that we might preserve the protective system, which we were pledged to do in the event that the abolition of the one was essential to the preservation of the other. That was unnecessary.

“The bill does not amend or modify any part of the internal-revenue taxes applicable to spirits or fermented liquors. It abolishes all the special taxes and licenses, so called, imposed upon the manufacture of tobacco, cigars and snuff, and dealers thereof, reduces the tax upon manufactured tobacco from eight to four cents per pound, and removes all restrictions now imposed upon the growers of tobacco. With these exceptions, the internal-revenue laws are left undisturbed. From this source we reduce taxation over $70,000,000, and leave with the people this direct tax which has been paid by them upon their own products through a long series of years.

“The tariff part of the bill contemplates and proposes a complete revision. It not only changes the rates of duty, but modifies the general provisions of the law relating to the collection of duties. These modifications have received the approval of the Treasury Department, and are set forth in detail in the report of the committee, and I will not weary you by restating them.

“We propose this advanced duty to protect our manufacturers and consumers against the British monopoly, in the belief that it will defend our capital and labor in the production of tin plate until they shall establish an industry which the English shall recognize has come to stay, and then competition will insure regular and reasonable prices to consumers. It may add a little, temporarily, to the cost of tin plate to the consumer, but will eventuate in steadier and more satisfactory prices. At the present prices for foreign tin plate, the proposed duty would not add any thing to the cost of the heavier grades of tin to the consumer. If the entire duty was added to the cost of the can, it would not advance it more than one-third, or one-half of one cent, for on a dozen fruit cans the addition would properly only be about three cents.

“We have now enjoyed twenty-nine years continuously of protective tariff laws—the longest uninterrupted period in which that policy has prevailed since the formation of the Federal government—and we find ourselves at the end of that period in a condition of independence and prosperity the like of which has never been witnessed at any other period in the history of our country, and the like of which had no parallel in the recorded history of the world. In all that goes to make a nation great and strong and independent, we have made extraordinary strides. In arts, in science, in literature, in manufactures, in invention, in scientific principles applied to manufacture and agriculture, in wealth and credit and National honor we are at the very front, abreast with the best, and behind none.

“In 1860, after fourteen years of a revenue tariff, just the kind of a tariffthat our political adversaries are advocating to-day, the business of the country was prostrated, agriculture was deplorably depressed, manufacturing was on the decline, and the poverty of the government, itself, made this Nation a by-word in the financial centers of the world. We neither had money nor credit. Both are essential; a nation can get on if it has abundant revenues, but if it has none it must have credit. We had neither as the legacy of the Democratic revenue tariff. We have both now. We have a surplus revenue and a spotless credit. I need not state what is so fresh in our minds, so recent in our history, as to be known to every gentleman who hears me, that from the inauguration of the protective tariff laws of 1861, the old Morrill tariff—which has brought to that veteran statesman the highest honor and will give to him his proudest monument—this condition changed. Confidence was restored, courage was inspired, the government started upon a progressive era under a system thoroughly American.

“With a great war on our hands, with an army to enlist and prepare for service, with untold millions of money to supply, the protective tariff never failed us in a single emergency, and while money was flowing into our treasury to save the government, industries were springing up all over the land—the foundation and corner-stone of our prosperity and glory. With a debt of over $2,750,000,000 when the war terminated, holding on to our protective laws, against Democratic opposition, we have reduced that debt at an average rate of more than $62,000,000 each year, $174,000 every twenty-four hours for the last twenty-five years, and what looked like a burden almost impossible to bear has been removed under the Republican fiscal system, until now it is less than $1,000,000,000, and with the payment of this vast sum of money the Nation has not been impoverished, the individual citizen has not been burdened or bankrupted, National and individual prosperity have gone steadily on, until our wealth is so great as to be almost incomprehensible when put into figures.

“The accumulations of the laborers of the country have increased, and the working classes of no nation in the world have such splendid deposits in savings banks as the working classes of the United States. Listen to their story: The deposits of all the savings banks of New England in 1886 equaled $554,532,434. The deposits in the savings banks of New York in 1886 were $482,686,730. The deposits in the savings banks of Massachusetts for the year 1887 were $302,948,624, and the number of depositors was 944,778, or $320.67 for each depositor. The savings banks of nine States have in nineteen years increased their deposits $628,000,000. The English savings banks have in thirty-four years increased theirs $350,000,000. Our operative deposits $7 to the English operative’s $1. These vast sums represent the savings of the men whose labor has been employed under the protective policy which gives, as experience has shown, the largest possible reward to labor.

PRESIDENT McKINLEY WITH HIS G.A.R. POST.

From a photograph taken for and used by courtesy of Chicago Inter Ocean.

“Free trade, or as you are pleased to call it, ‘revenue tariff,’ means the opening up of this market, which is admitted to be the best in the world, to the free entry of the products of the world. It means more—it means that the labor of this country is to be remitted to its earlier condition, and that the condition of our people is to be leveled down to the condition of rival countries, because under it every element of cost, every item of production, including wages, must be brought down to the level of the lowest paid labor of the world. No other result can follow, and no other result is anticipated or expected by those who intelligently advocate a revenue tariff. We cannot maintain ourselves against unequal conditions without the tariff, and no man of affairs believes we can. Under the system of unrestricted trade which you gentlemen recommend, we will have to reduce every element of cost down to or below that of our commercial rivals, or surrender to them our own market. No one will dispute that statement; and to go into the domestic market of our rivals would mean that production here must be so reduced that with transportation added we could undersell them in their own market; and to meet them in neutral markets and divide the trade with them would mean that we could profitably sell side by side with them at their minimum price.

“First, then, to retain our own market under the Democratic system of raising revenue, by removing all protection, would require our producers to sell at as low a price and upon as favorable terms as our foreign competitors. How could that be done? In one way only—by producing as cheaply as those who would seek our markets. What would that entail? An entire revolution in the methods and conduct of business here, a leveling down through every channel to the lowest line of our competitors, our habits of living would have to be changed, our wages cut down fifty per cent. or more, our comfortable homes exchanged for hovels, our independence yielded up, our citizenship demoralized. These are conditions inseparable to free trade; these would be necessary, if we would command our own market among our own people; and if we would invade the world’s markets, harsher conditions and greater sacrifices would be demanded of the masses. Talk about depression—we would then have it in its fulness. We would revel in unrestrainedtrade. Everything would indeed be cheap, but how costly when measured by the degradation which would ensue! When merchandise is the cheapest, men are the poorest; and the most distressing experiences in the history of our country—aye, in all human history—have been when everything was the lowest and cheapest measured by gold, for everything was the highest and the dearest measured by labor. We have no wish to adopt the conditions of other nations. Experience has demonstrated that for us and ours, and for the present and the future, the protective system meets our wants, our conditions, promotes the national design, and will work out our destiny better than any other.

“With me, this position is a deep conviction, not a theory. I believe in it and thus warmly advocate it, because enveloped in it are my country’s highest development and greatest prosperity; out of it come the greatest gains to the people, the greatest comforts to the masses, the widest encouragement for manly aspirations, with the largest rewards, dignifying and elevating our citizenship, upon which the safety and purity and permanency of our political system depend.”

But the year of his supreme success was also the year of his enemies’ seeming triumph. His congressional district in Ohio, three times vainly gerrymandered with the aim of throwing him out, had finally been so arranged as to make his re-election impossible. It was the end of his career in the House. Yet it was only the vestibule of a greater eminence. The people of Ohio made him their Governor. And when the lighter duties of four years in the state executive mansion had recuperated his powers, the nation made him its candidate for President, and elected him on an issue that meant bravery, progress and wise statesmanship.

This closes the chapter of his life which was concerned in legislation. It is the end of his congressional career. If any man shall ask what was the greatest achievement of those fourteen years, the answer must be: “William McKinley’s triumph for Protection!” He was the champion of that doctrine, the first man to advocate it as a principle to be preserved until the need should pass, the first to put a conscience in the discussions of a tariff. And he was, without exception, the ablest man that ever defended it, the bravest man that ever advocated it, the most successful man that ever supported it. Protection was by no means his one accomplishment. He was active in all legislation, neglectful of none. But his position on the Ways and Means Committee, so long held, made this master issue his chief concern.

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