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which were ably represented on the floor. personal animosity toward the President, which did not at once find open expression, was in part an inheritance from his first administration; in part a result of the masterful way in which he had forced the repeal of the Sherman Act; and to a large degree, it represented the traditional antagonism which most Senators entertain toward every President who has not had Congressional experience sufficient to make him understand and properly respect the usages, the prerogatives and the prejudices of the Senatorial body.

It was something more than ominous that the Wilson Tariff Bill after passing the House by a majority of 76, and after having been referred by the Senate to its Finance Committee, should have been held back by that committee for almost two months. When reported (March 20th), it had been so clipt and trimmed as to exhibit a very curious metamorphosis. Yet in the open Senate the measure fared still worse. As might have been expected, the Republicans fell upon it tooth and nail; but acting in entire harmony with them, were certain Democratic Senators who seemed to have forgotten altogether the solemn pledges which their National Convention of 1892 had given to the country. Foremost among these were the blandly inscrutable Senator Gorman of Maryland, and the newly elected Senator Brice of Ohio. The two appeared upon the Democratic side of the Senate as the unavowed yet most efficient agents of the protected interests, and their object was plainly to modify and mutilate the Wilson Bill in such a way as to deprive it of any real significance and meaning.

The action of the Senate upon the sugar schedule led to a most deplorable scandal. The House had put all sugar-both refined and raw-upon the free list, thereby giving governmental aid neither to the Sugar Trust nor to the domestic producer. The two Senators from Louisiana, however, having in mind their sugar-growing constituency, insisted that raw sugar must be taxed. Without their votes, the bill could probably not be carried at all, so close was the division. Furthermore, other Senators believed that such a duty was necessary as a revenue measure; since the funds in the Treasury were low, and the receipts from the income tax would not be available for many months. Hence, the Senate imposed a duty upon raw sugar of 40 per cent. ad valorem, equivalent to about one cent a pound. But a duty on raw sugar without a countervailing duty on refined sugar would have been a serious blow to the Sugar Trust. All the powerful influences at the command of this corporation were immediately brought to bear upon the Senate. Here was a direct issue between one of the most notorious of Trusts on the one side, and the purpose of crippling Trusts avowed by the Democracy on the other. The Democratic platform had spoken of "Trusts and combinations" as "a natural consequence of the prohibitive taxes, which prevent

free competition." Would Democratic Senators, in the face of this declaration, impose a prohibitive tax at the bidding of a Trust whose monopoly controlled one of the necessities of life?

The debate upon the subject soon waxed hot. While it was in progress, ugly rumors began to fly abroad. The certificates of the Sugar Trust

fluctuated in value every day, as the Senate seemed first favorable and then unfavorable to its interests. There was some difficulty about getting evidence; and in the end nothing was accomplished save to leave a taint upon the names of several Senators and to disgust the country with the whole tariff controversy.

The Trust had its way. Refined sugar was taxed one-eighth of a cent a pound, with an additional duty of one-tenth of a cent on refined sugar imported from countries giving an export bounty. This tax, minutely insignificant tho it may appear, was ample to continue and confirm the Sugar Trust in its supremacy. The fractional duty of one-eighth of a cent a pound meant to the treasury of the Trust not less than $20,000,000 of profit every year. After months of wearisome delay, with frequent scenes of disorder and indecorum, the Senate finally, on July 3d, allowed the mutilated tariff bill to pass, by a scant majority of five votes (39 to 34), with twelve Senators not voting.

The bill went back to the House for its concurrence. Mr. Wilson, rising in his place on July 7th, urged that as altered and amended, it be not passed. He spoke with force and eloquence, and then took the unusual step of reading to the House a personal letter addrest to him by the President on July 2d, anticipating the action of the Senate. It was an extraordinary letter, and the fact of its being read was still more extraordinary; for thus the Executive was made to criticize the action of one house of Congress in a letter practically written to be read before the other house. From a party point of view, a Democratic President was arraigning Democratic Senators before

both Democratic and Republican Representatives. That President Cleveland should have permitted such a letter to be read at such a time has seemed to many the clearest possible evidence of his incompetency as a party leader. It was most certainly a gage of defiance to the Senate a body already inimical to him. It violated to some extent the proprieties of executive courtesy toward a branch of the national legislature. It was certain to give the bitterest offense to Senators of his own party.

The effect of it in the Senate was to seal irrevocably the fate of the Wilson Bill as a measure of true reform. Altho the President had named no names in his accusation of "party perfidy and dishonor," the shaft had gone unerringly to its proper mark. Senator Gorman, stung by those pungent words, brought the subject before the Senate, with a show of virtuous indignation.

The House refused to concur in the Senate's amendments, and the bill was sent to a conference committee of both houses. In conference, the Senate's representatives refused to yield a single point. The House could take the bill precisely as it left the Senate, or the bill could fail, leaving the McKinley tariff still in force. In the end, the House was forced to accept the amendments in their entirety, and to pass the bill which Mr. Cleveland had stigmatized as involving "perfidy and dishonor."

The predicament of the President was a cruel one. He could not put his signature to such a measure. He could not veto it, and make the professions of his party utterly ridiculous. And so he let it become a law without his signature.

COXEY'S ARMY AND THE DEBS

RAILWAY STRIKE

(1899)

BY HARRY THURSTON PECK1

The slow progress of the Wilson Bill, prolonging as it did the feeling of uncertainty in the business world, had deprest all forms of industry. Thousands of men who had been thrown out of work in the summer and autumn of 1893 found themselves at the beginning of winter wholly destitute. Some of them had left their homes in the Eastern States and had gone to the Pacific Coast as railway builders. They now turned their faces homeward, intending to tramp the long distance, and to live upon the charity of the intervening towns and cities. These men were presently joined by others who were out of work, and finally by swarms of professional vagabonds and tramps. Through some curious psychological impulse, the notion of a general crusade of squalor spread all through the country; and from every quarter of the West and the Southwest, bands of ragged, hungry, homeless men appeared, fierce of aspect, and terrifying to the people of the hamlets and sparsely settled districts through which they passed. Theft, rape, and sometimes murder marked the

1 From Peck's "Twenty Years of the Republic." By permission of the publishers, Dodd, Mead & Company. Copy. right, 1906.