the compromise Payne-Aldrich Bill, destined to become law through the
President's signature, August 5, 1909.
The debate in the Senate was a noteworthy one. The progressive senators
of the Middle West, led by Dolliver, of Iowa, and La Follette, of
Wisconsin, fought the measure sturdily, but with little success.
"Jokers" slipped in here and there, and more than one critic has charged
that the Senate was less solicitous for the rights of the consumers than
for the rights of the "interests."
Several schedules have come in for the most severe kind of criticism. In
the cotton schedule the increased rates laid upon certain classes of