PART from events of a political character, the most memorable occurrence that took place during the years of Mr. Cleveland's second term was the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, which was opened by the President on May 1, 1893, and was closed to the public on October 31st. From several points of view, this magnificent revelation of American capacity and versatility deserves to be considered in any record which has to do with the intellectual and æsthetic development of the United States. Its inception, no less than its successful elaboration, must remain one of the enduring civic glories of the city of Chicago; and because of it, Chicago became known all over the civilised world as the most vitally American, if not the greatest, city on the Western Hemisphere.

The plan for a World's Fair, to commemorate the quadri-centennial of the first landing of Columbus, began to take on definite shape in 1889. That the site of the Exposition should be in or near the city of New York was at first regarded as a matter of course. A great many persons in New York wished it, though New York, collectively, did not wish it very much. There is never anything which New York, collectively, wishes very much. Yet with a sort of indifferent generosity, its wealthy citizens subscribed the sum of $5,000,000 to defray the cost of the affair, and measures were taken to assure the opening of a Columbian Exposition in October, 1892, the anniversary month of America's discovery. But when Congress was asked to approve this plan and thus to give the celebration a national character, it appeared that other cities than New York

had claims which they were anxious to submit. St. Louis contended for the honour, though half-heartedly. Many thought that Washington, as the nation's capital, deserved the most consideration. But the people of Chicago fairly hurled themselves into the contest. They longed intensely for the opportunity to accomplish something sufficiently stupendous to satisfy their own ambition, their own love of bigness, their civic pride, and, most of all, their vivid and spectacular, but very genuine patriotism. They harped upon their city's nearness to the centre of population. They claimed the Exposition not merely on behalf of their own State, but of the entire West. They pledged themselves to do anything and everything that might be necessary to make it triumphantly successful. They laughed with a large, amused contempt at New York's pitiful five millions. Their estimates, at the very least, were twice that sum; and before long they spoke of fifteen millions as barely adequate to realise their magnificent ideal. In the end they and their supporters fairly carried Congress by storm, and the Exposition was given to Chicago. Erelong it was declared, and as the event showed, truly, that not less than $20,000,000 would need to be expended.* The very hugeness of the sum, the colossal daring of the conception, which seemed to the conservative East almost a frenzy, served only to exhilarate the people of Chicago and nerve them to surpass all that they had hitherto imagined. In New York, there was a certain feeling of relief because the Ex

*In round figures, the management of the Exposition expended $20,000,000; the United States Government, $2,250,000; the separate States and foreign governments, $12,000,000, making a total expenditure of nearly $35,000,000.

position had gone elsewhere. The enthusiasm of Chicago seemed to the Manhattanese a bit of patavinity, an amusing exhibition of provincialism. Chicago's promises were rated as mere "wind." Of course, some kind of a huge raree-show would be given on the borders of Lake Michigan, but its bigness would be equalled only by its crudity.

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How superbly and with what overwhelming completeness the metropolis of the West transformed this mocking criticism into wondering admiration, the whole world came to know, when on the lakeside, a rough, unkempt and tangled stretch of plain and swamp, became transmuted into a shimmering dream of loveliness under the magic touch of landscape gardener and architect and artist. felicity of language can bring before the eye that never saw them those marvellous harmonies which consummate Art, brooding lovingly over Nature, evolved into that entrancing and soul-satisfying maze of beauty. Not one of the twelve million human beings* who set foot within the Court of Honour, the crowning glory of the whole, could fail to be thrilled with a new and poignant sense of what both Art and Nature truly mean. The stately colonnades, the graceful arches, the clustered sculptures, the gleaming domes, the endless labyrinth of snowy columns, all diversified by greenery and interlaced by long lagoons of quiet water-here were blended form and colour in a symmetrical and radiant purity such as modern eyes, at least, had never looked upon before.

It was the sheer beauty of its wonderful ensemble, rather than the wealth of its exhibits, that made this Exposition so remarkably significant in the history of such undertakings, and especially in its effect upon American civilisation. So far as the display within its buildings was concerned, this had been equalled several years before at Paris, as it was afterwards surpassed at both Paris and St. Louis. Upon that side, indeed, the American people stood far less in need of education than was commonly supposed. The importance of the Columbian Exposition lay in the fact that it revealed to millions

*This is a conservative estimate of the attendance, excluding duplicate admissions.

of those whose lives were necessarily colourless and narrow, the splendid possibilities of art, and the compelling power of the beautiful. These possibilities and this power could never have been forced upon their understanding in any other way than by a demonstration so impressive as to stultify denial. The far-reaching influence of the demonstration is not one that can be measured by any formal test. But a study of American conditions will certainly reveal an accelerated appreciation of the graces of life and a quickening of the aesthetic sense throughout the whole decade which followed the creation of what Mr. H. C. Bunner most felicitously designated the White City.

The year 1894 is one to be long remembered in American history. In it those elements of dynamic discontent which had long been gathering strength, half unperceived, now loomed upon the political horizon with the black and sullen menace of a swelling thunder-cloud, within whose womb are pent the forces of destruction. For years, by bargain and by compromise, the day of reckoning had been postponed; but both compromise and bargain were impossible, and the nation had to face, however fearfully, the issues which would no longer down. The events of 1894 must of necessity be narrated in succession; yet the reader should remember that they took place simultaneously, and that each of them had a very definite relation to the others.

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It had been expected by the President and his immediate supporters that the repeal of the Sherman Act would at once revive prosperity by restoring confidence to the business world. Such, however, proved not to be the case. The premium on currency had, to be sure, disappeared as early as September 6th, and the list of failures and suspensions was gradually curtailed. But there was no general revival of commercial activity. If the country had previously shown the symptoms of financial fever, it now exhibited a condition of extreme debility. The income of the Government was far from satisfying; and the Secretary of the Treasury, in his estimates for the coming year, anticipated a deficit of $28,000,000.

as against a surplus of some $2,000,000 for the fiscal year just ended.

This unfavourable condition of affairs was ascribed by the Democrats to the incubus of the McKinley tariff legislation; while the Republicans continued to assert that the business of the country was at a standstill because of a general distrust of Democratic rule and a feeling of uncertainty as to what action the party now in power might take with reference to the tariff. It seemed, indeed, an unpropitious time for entering upon a revision of the revenue system. Many Democrats would have been glad to wait; yet in the face of their explicit party pledges, delay would have convicted them of insincerity. They had carried the election chiefly on the tariff issue; their platform had said of the McKinley Law: "We promise its repeal as one of the beneficent results that will follow the action of the people in intrusting power to the Democratic party."

In the face of all this, it was impossible to take any backward steps or to hesitate and seek refuge in delay. Furthermore, the President, as always, was earnestly in favour of an aggressive policy. His party had been divided by the silver controversy; but on the tariff question he felt sure of its support. Hence, when the regular session of Congress assembled on December 4th, the President's message spoke with confidence and vigour of new tariff legislation as "both an opportunity and a duty." "After a hard struggle, tariff reform is directly before us."

"After full discussion, our countrymen have spoken in favour of this reform, and they have confided the work of its accomplishment to the hands of those who are solemnly pledged to it. . . . Nothing should intervene to distract our attention or disturb our effort until this reform is accomplished by wise and careful legislation."

The President outlined the sort of tariff measure that seemed to him desirable. It should give to American manufacturers free raw materials, thus enabling them to produce as cheaply as the foreigner; and hence to enlarge the market for American-made goods. In general, the tariff charges should be reduced upon the necessaries of life. Finally, the President

announced that a measure such as he had in mind had been already framed and would be promptly submitted to the Congress. This measure was not to be unduly radical-not providing as yet for a tariff for revenue only. The country could not in a moment cast aside every. vestige of the protective system. "We cannot close our eyes to the fact that conditions have grown up among us which in justice and fairness call for discriminating care in the distribution of . . . duties and taxation."

On December 19th, Mr. Wilson, the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, reported to the House the bill to which the President had made allusion in his message. It was officially styled "An act to reduce taxation, to provide revenue for the Government, and for other purposes," but popularly it was known as the Wilson Bill. The Republicans at once denounced it as free-trade legislation; but an analysis of its provisions as originally reported showed plainly enough that while it was distinctly a step in the direction of freer trade, it was on the whole a very conservative measure.

In the first place, it removed entirely the duties on wool, on coal, on iron ore, on lumber, and on sugar, both raw and refined. It made rather moderate reductions in the duties on woollen goods, cottons, linens, silks, pig iron, steel billets, steel rails, tin plate, china, glassware, and earthenware. A number of minor and miscellaneous articles received new schedules. The most noticeable feature of the bill was its treatment of raw materials as just described. Here lay the point of departure from Republican tariff legislation, which in taxing raw materials had made American protectionism differ from the protectionism of all other leading nations. The Wilson Bill, in providing for the free entry of wool, coal, iron ore, lumber and sugar, both adopted a principle recognised by scientific economists, while it adhered closely to the recommendations of President Cleveland's various messages and to the promises made in the Democratic platform of 1892.

The remission of the duty on wool was the boldest assertion of the new policy, for the duty on wool had been the one provision of the McKinley tariff that had

been of practical advantage to many American farmers. Its repeal was bitterly opposed by the wool-growers of Ohio and other States, whom Senator Sherman estimated at a million souls, and the value of their annual product at $125,000,000.* Free iron ore was opposed by the interests that had secured control of the Western ore beds, but was of distinct advantage to the Eastern manufacturers. Free coal affected very few sections of the country. In New England and on the Pacific Coast, consumers might now get their supply of coal from the adjacent mines in Canada rather than from the more distant coal-fields of Pennsylvania and West Virginia; but the country at large must still use American and not imported coal. The same thing was true with regard to lumber. The question of the tariff on sugar, however, was somewhat more complex. During the years preceding 1894, the refining of sugar in the United States had gradually become monopolised by the American Sugar Refining Company, oftener spoken of as the Sugar Trust, of which Mr. H. O. Havemeyer was the head. corporation was one of the most powerful of all those to which public attention had been directed, and it was one of the most unpopular. The interests of this corporation would be served by admitting raw sugar free (thereby giving it the benefit of cheap material), and by a tax upon refined sugar which came from other countries. This was precisely what the McKinley Act had done, thereby enormously increasing the profits of this Trust. The Wilson Bill as reported to the House provided for the admission. of raw sugar free, in accordance with the general theory as to raw materials, but it also admitted refined sugar free, thereby depriving the Sugar Trust of any special advantage, and leaving it to stand upon its own legs.

This

So much for the distinctive features of the new tariff measure in its original form. The rest of its schedules were lower than those of the McKinley Act, but in the main quite as high if not higher than those of the Tariff Act of 1883, passed by a Republican Congress.

*Sherman, Recollections, ii, p. 1203 (Chicago, 1895).

had grown up under the shelter of the thirty-two tariff acts which the Republicans had passed between 1860 and 1890.

The Wilson Bill was very well received by the Democrats in the House and by the party as a whole. Little change was made in the original draft during the five weeks when it was under consideration by the Representatives. But many Democrats and some Republicans from the South and West eagerly advocated the insertion in the bill of a clause providing for a tax on incomes. This would yield, it was said, a substantial revenue and wipe out the anticipated deficit, and most of all it would make the possessors of large fortunes contribute to the Government a sum proportionate to their wealth. There was a strong and very widespread feeling that many of the richest persons in the country had so successfully "dodged" their taxes, as to have secured a practical exemption from any taxation whatsoever. Secretary Carlisle had suggested laying a tax upon certain classes