CHAPTER X. POLITICS IN HARRISON'S DAYS. Uncertainties of Politics. Republican Reverses of 1890 and 1892. Harrison and the Surplus. The Reed THE HE experience of the country between 1889 and 1893, during the term of President Harrison, furnishes a conspicuous illustration of the uncertainty of the tenure on which parties hold power when a strong and alert opposition organization exists; the extent to which independence in voting is carried in the present age, and the swiftness and sureness with which a party's overthrow follows on the heels of its errors or blunders. On March 4, 1889, the Republicans recovered the Presidency which they lost in 1885 and the House, which was taken away from them in 1883, and they retained their hold on the Senate. Four States in the Republican section-North and South Dakota, Montana and Washington -which had been created by bills signed by President Cleveland shortly before his retirement in 1889, seemed to intrench them in power in the Senate and in the Electoral College for many years without any possibility of dislodgement. Their position, too, was farther strengthened, or appeared to be, by the creation of two more States in the same locality— Idaho and Wyoming-in 1890. Within two years, however, the whole face of affairs changed. The election of 1890 placed them in one of the smallest minorities in the House of Representatives ever known in the entire history of the country, and that of 1892 completed the work by turning them out of power in the Presidency and the Senate. The change was caused by the work of the first Congress of the presidential term-that of 1889-91. On December 3, 1889, a day after the opening of the Fifty-first Congress, President Harrison, in his message, called attention in these words, to a problem which had for two or three years excited much concern throughout the country: "The existence of so large an actual and anticipated surplus ($43,700,000 in excess of ordinary expenditures and the requirements of the sinking fund in the fiscal year to end seven months later, June 30, 1890) should have the immediate attention of Congress, with a view to reducing the receipts of the Treasury to the needs of the Government as closely as may be. The collection of moneys not needed for public uses imposes an unnecessary burden upon our people, and the presence of so large a surplus in the public vaults is a disturbing element in the conduct of public business." One of the earliest tasks in the House of Representatives of the Congress which President Harrison thus addressed-the Fifty-first Congress was the adoption of a code of rules devised by Speaker Thomas B. Reed, to enable the party responsible for legislation to exercise a more complete control over it than was possible under the rules prevailing before that time. The rules were designed chiefly to prevent dilatory motions, and to enable the Speaker to "count quorums.' They gave the Speaker powers which were never before possessed by that official. The contest over the rules was long and exciting, and the Democratic opposition was bitter and constant, yet the leading principles of the innovations were adopted afterward by the Democrats in a House presided over by Charles F. Crisp. The narrowness of the Republican margin in the House at the outset in the Fifty-first Congress their plurality was only seven-and the ease with which the minority were able to break quorums by refusing to answer roll-calls, dictated the change in rules. The new rules were adopted by a vote of 161 to 144, a strict partisan division, 23 members not voting. Tariff. In the intervals in the contests on the adoption of rules, the Ways The McKinley and Means Committee was at work on a tariff bill which William McKinley, its chairman, reported to the House April 16, 1890. The measure, which was called a bill to "reduce the revenue and equalize the duties on imports and for other purposes," passed the House May 21 by a vote of 164 (all Republicans) to 142 (1 Republican, 140 Democrats and 1 Independent). The Senate, on September 9, attached a reciprocity amendment to the bill by a vote of 38 (all Republicans) to 29 (2 Republicans and 27 Democrats), modified it in other particulars, and passed the bill on the 11th by a strict partisan vote of 40 to 29. The House refused to concur in the Senate amendments, and a committee of conference was chosen, which made a report on the points in disagreement. This report, which was practically an indorsement of the Senate's changes in the measures, was accepted by the House September 27, by a vote of 152 (all Republicans) to 81 (79 Democrats, 1 Republican and 1 Independent). The Senate agreed to it on the 30th, and it was signed by President Harrison October 1, 1890. The McKinley act advanced duties on many articles, reduced duties on a few, and placed some articles on the free list. Raw sugar was the most important product made free. The sugar provision was highly popular with Republicans, and so was the reciprocity section, which was suggested by Secretary Blaine, and through which advantageous trade treaties were had with several countries. The advances in duties, however, which covered many articles in the textile and metal schedules, were received with some disfavor by an element of the Republicans in many of the Western States, and lessened the party's vote in 1890 and 1892. The object of the act was to reduce the revenue and increase protection, and this it accomplished. In the fiscal year 1890, before the act was passed, the customs amounted to $230,000,000. They were $220,000,000 in 1891, during part of which year the law was in opera Scope and Character of That Act. It Cuts the Harrison on the Silver Issue. The Conger Plumb's Free tion, and they were $177,000,000 in 1892, throughout the whole of which the law was in force. In the last named year the excess of revenue over expenditure was $10,000,000, while it was $86,000,000 in 1890. Of even greater importance than the tariff bill was the silver measure, which was taken up later, but passed earlier. The President in his message of December 3, 1889, told Congress that the Bland-Allison law of February 28, 1878, "requiring the purchase by the Treasury of $2,000,000 of silver bullion each month, to be coined into silver dollars, * * * has been observed by the Department, but neither the present Secretary nor any of his predecessors has deemed it safe to exercise the discretion given by law to increase the monthly purchases to $4,000,000," and he added that he thought it was clear that "if we should make the coinage of silver at the present ratio free, we must expect that the difference in the bullion values of the gold and silver dollars will be taken account of in commercial transactions,"-that is, that gold would disappear, and that the country's currency would drop to the silver level, the bullion value of the silver dollar at that time being about seventy-two cents in gold. The President said he favored the use of silver in the currency, and he approved a plan submitted by Secretary Windom, and afterward embodied in a bill introduced in the House. It provided for the issue of notes against the deposits of American silver bullion at the market price of the bullion on the day of its deposit. A bill introduced by E. H. Conger, of Iowa, in the House was substituted for this one, and passed that body. It provided for the purchase of $4,500,000 worth of silver bullion a month, and the issue of treasury notes against it, and one of its sections provided for free coinage when the market price of silver reached $1.00 for 371 grains of the pure metal. This conditional free silver bill was transformed into an absolute free coinage measure in the Senate June 17, 1890, on motion of Mr. Plumb, by a vote of 43 (14 Republicans and 29 Democrats) to 24 (22 Republicans and 2 Democrats). The House, on June 25, refused to accept the bill in this form, rejecting the free coinage amendment by 152 (131 Republicans and 21 Democrats) to 135 (22 Republicans and 113 Democrats), and a committee of conference was ordered, which framed a compromise bill. This measure, in brief, directed the Secretary of the Treasury to purchase 4,500,000 ounces of silver each month at the market price, and to issue in payment for it Treasury notes, these notes to be a legal tender for all debts, public and private, except where otherwise provided in the contract, the notes to be redeemable in gold or silver coin, at the discretion of the Secretary. This bill, which repealed the Bland-Allison The "Sherman act, was accepted July 10 by a vote of 39 to 26 in the Senate, and July 12 by 122 to 90 in the House (all the affirmative votes in each branch, Law.' |