vote was 140 (136 Democrats and 4 Republicans) for consideration, to 157 (122 Republicans and 35 Democrats) against it. The 35 Democrats who aided the Republicans to defeat the bill were the Randall contingent, who were destined to shrink to very small proportions, and then to vanish altogether in the coming years. The second of the tariff contests was on the Mills bill, which passed The Mills Bill. the House of Representatives July 21, 1888, by a vote of 162 (161) Democrats and 1 Republican) to 149 (145 Republicans and 4 Democrats). Within two years the protectionist Democrats, whose weight in the scale with the Republicans against the Morrison bill was decisive, had practically disappeared. The Mills bill was antagonized in the Republican Senate by a Republican substitute measure, which passed that body, but which was not considered in the House. In the House which passed the Mills bill, as well as in the one which rejected the Morrison measure, the Democrats were in the majority. The Republicans who took a particularly conspicuous part in the House in the contest against the Mills bill were Thomas B. Reed, William McKinley and Julius C. Burrows. The inciting cause of the Mills bill of 1888 was the historic message of December 6, 1887, in which the President broke all precedents in deliverances of this sort, and confined his attention to a single subjectthe tariff. The treasury surpluses were the leading influence in instigating the message. Ever since 1880 the Government's revenue largely exceeded its expenditure, the excess ranging between $63,000,000 in the fiscal year 1885 and $146,000,000 in 1882. A Republican tariff reduction, the act of March 3, 1883, cut down the revenues to a considerable extent, yet they were embarrassingly large when Cleveland entered office in 1885, and the surplus was $103,000,000 in the twelve months ending with June 30, 1887, five months before the message spoken of was written. The President called the attention of Congress to the redundant revenues, advised a reduction of duties on many articles, raw and manu factured, and recommended the repeal of the impost on wool. The existing tariff laws, he said, were the "vicious, inequitable and illogical source of unnecessary taxation," and "ought to be at once revised and amended." "Our progress toward a wise conclusion will not be improved by dwelling on the theories of protection and free trade," he said. "This savors too much of bandying epithets. It is a condition which confronts us, not a theory." This deliverance, and the Mills bill, which was designed to give it practical shape, constituted the chief issue of the canvass of 1888. James G. Blaine, then in Paris, made a vigorous reply to the message in an interview, which was cabled to the United States and published in the leading newspapers. The Blaine reply strengthened the hold of its author on the regard of the Republican masses, and created an apparently irresistible demand for his nomination in 1888. This was so widespread Cleveland's Tariff Message of 1887. "A Condition, Not a Theory," Blaine's "Paris The Conven tion of 1888. The Tariff Plank" of 1888. Harrison's Nomination. Cleveland's Renomination. and powerful that though he withdrew from the contest on the score of ill-health, in two letters from Europe, he received many votes in the convention. The convention met in Chicago June 19, declared in favor of protection, denounced the Mills bill, opposed the introduction of foreign contract labor and of Chinese labor, declared its hostility to trusts, demanded the admission to Statehood of all the Territories fitted for that condition, and said, "the Republican party is in favor of the use of both gold and silver as money, and condemns the policy of the Democratic Administration in its efforts to demonetize silver." This was the tariff utterance in full: "We are uncompromisingly in favor of the American system of protection; we protest against its destruction as proposed by the President and his party. They serve the interests of Europe; we will support the interests of America. We accept the issue, and confidently appeal to the people for their judgment. The protective system must be maintained. Its abandonment has always been followed by general disaster to all interests except those of the usurer and the sheriff. We denounce the Mills bill as destructive to the general business, the labor and the farming interests of the country, and we heartily indorse the consistent and patriotic action of the Republican representatives in Congress in opposing its passage. We condemn the proposition of the Democratic party to place wool on the free list, and we insist that the duties thereon shall be adjusted and maintained so as to furnish full and adequate protection to that industry throughout the United States. The Republican party would effect all needed reduction of the national revenue by repealing the taxes upon tobacco, which are an annoyance and burden to agriculture, and the tax upon spirits used in the arts and for mechanical purposes; and by such revision of the tariff laws as will tend to check imports of such articles as are produced by our people, the production of which gives employment to our labor, and release from import duties those articles of foreign production (except luxuries), the like of which cannot be produced at home. there shall still remain a larger revenue than is requisite for the wants of the Government, we favor the entire repeal of internal taxes rather than the surrender of any part of our protective system at the joint behest of the whisky trusts and the agents of foreign manufacturers." If On the first ballot the aspirants stood in this order, beginning with the one having the largest number of votes: John Sherman, Walter Q. Gresham, Chauncey M. Depew, Russell A. Alger, Benjamin Harrison, William B. Allison and James G. Blaine, with a few local favorites bringing up the rear. Sherman lost the first place on the seventh ballot, Harrison taking it, and Harrison was nominated on the eighth ballot. Cleveland was renominated by acclamation in a convention which met in St. Louis June 5. Clinton B. Fisk was nominated by the Prohibitionists, and Alanson J. Streeter by the Union Labor party. The canvass was moderately spirited, but much less personal, active and exciting than that of 1884. A discreditable episode in the canvass was the publication of correspondence between a man signing himself "Charles F. Murchison" and Lord Sackville, the British Minister at Washington, in which the bogus "Murchison" pretended to be a former British subject, now a naturalized American citizen, and asked Sackville how he ("Murchison") ought to vote. The Minister fell into the trap and said that a vote for Cleveland would be more friendly to England than one for Harrison. The correspondence was published two weeks before election, and was used by the Republicans as an evidence of British friendship for the Democrats. On the request of President Cleveland the guileless Minister was recalled. In the election the Republicans carried the country, securing the electoral votes of all the North and West except Connecticut and New Jersey, while the Democrats won these two States and the solid South. New York, as in 1844, 1848, 1880 and 1884, turned the scale in 1888. Neither of the minor parties obtained any electoral votes. Harrison's electoral vote was 233 and Cleveland's 168. Of the popular vote Harrison had 5,440,551; Cleveland, 5,538,494; Fisk, 250,290, and Streeter, 147,045. The Republicans, after four years of exclusion from sway, were again placed in power, regaining the House as well as the Presidency. They had held the Senate during Cleveland's entire term. 59 The 'Murchison" Letter. Harrison's |