The attitude of Congress toward tariff revision illustrates many of the characteristics of congressional action during the early eighties. In his first message to Congress, Arthur said that the surplus for the year was $100,000,000, and therefore urged the reduction of the internal revenue taxes and the revision of the tariff. In May, 1882, Congress authorized a tariff commission to investigate and report, and in conformity with the law Arthur appointed its nine members. All of them were protectionists and the chairman, John L. Hayes, was secretary of the Wool Manufacturers' Association. After holding hearings in more than a score of cities and examining some hundreds of witnesses, the commission recommended reductions varying from nothing in some cases to forty or fifty per cent. in others. The average reduction was twenty to twenty-five per cent.
Using the report as a foundation, the Senate drew up a tariff measure, added it to a House bill which provided for a reduction of the internal revenues, and passed the combination. Meanwhile, lobbyists poured into Washington to guard the interests of the producers of lumber, pig-iron, sugar and other materials upon which the tariff might be reduced. When the Senate bill reached the House it contained lower duties than the protectionist members desired. The latter, although in possession of the organization of the House, were not strong enough to restore higher rates, but under the shrewd management of Thomas B. Reed, one of their number, they were able to refer the bill to a conference committee of the two houses which contained seven strong protectionists out of ten members. Reed admitted that the proceedings were "unusual in their nature and very forcible in their character" but he felt that a change in the tariff had been promised and that the only way to bring it about in the face of Democratic opposition was to settle the details "in the quiet of a conference committee." A "great emergency" having arisen, he would take extraordinary measures. The bill produced under these circumstances reduced the internal revenue taxes, lowered some of the tariff duties and raised others, but left the general level at the point where it had been at the close of the war. The Nation, favorable to reform, scornfully characterized the act as "taking a shaving off the duty on iron wire, and adding it to the duty on glue!" Senator Sherman, a protectionist member of the conference committee, wrote an account of the whole procedure many years afterward. After commending the spirit and proposals of the tariff commission and mentioning the successful efforts of many persons to have their individual interests looked out for, he expressed a regret that he did not defeat the bill, as he could have done in view of the evenly balanced party situation in the Senate at that time.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The election of 1880 is well treated by Sparks, Stanwood, Andrews, and Rhodes. Senator G.F. Hoar, the chairman of the Republican nominating convention, has a valuable chapter in his Autobiography of Seventy Years. Such newspapers as the New York Times and Tribune are invaluable for a discussion of the conventions.
The events of the administration, such as the tariff debates, the passage of the civil service law and others are discussed in the special works mentioned in Chapter V. Consult also: Edward Stanwood, J.G. Blaine; T.C. Platt, Autobiography; and A.R. Conkling, Life and Letters of Roscoe Conkling. The _Annual Cyclopaedia _contains several excellent articles on the tariff (1882, 1883), civil service reform (1883), star route trials (1882, 1883). H.C. Thomas, The Return of the Democratic Party to Power in 1884 (1919), contains useful chapters on Garfield and Arthur.
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[1] For Platt's account of the annual reunion and banquet of the three hundred and six—"The Old Guard"—see Autobiography, 115.
[2] Garfield's early career as a canal boy led to such campaign songs as the following:
He early learned to paddle well his own forlorn canoe,
Upon Ohio's grand canal he held the hellum true.
And now the people shout to him: "Lo! 't is for you we wait.
We want to see Jim Garfield guide our glorious ship of state."
[3] William Windom, of Minn., was Secretary of the Treasury; E.T. Lincoln, of Ill., Secretary of War; Wayne MacVeagh, of Pa., Attorney-General; T.L. James, of N.Y., Postmaster-General; W.H. Hunt, of La., Secretary of the Navy; S.J. Kirkwood, of Ia., Secretary of the Interior.