The tariff reformers left Cincinnati in despair and uncertainty—what should they do? A meeting was called at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York and the situation discussed. It was a “bad job,” all agreed, but on one point they could meet, that of amnesty. It was worth making a fight for. The Democrats would probably endorse Greeley if they stood by the Cincinnati convention. The meeting wavered and halted until finally late at night Carl Schurz in a speech, which those who heard it declare to have been one of the most eloquent he ever made, turned them to Greeley. The majority decided to waive tariff reform for the time being and join the movement to beat Grant.
The strength and the respectability of the faction which had seceded from the Republican party on tariff reform and kindred issues, alarmed the leaders who had been backing the iron and wool and copper and salt people in their demands. They appreciated that they must do something toward reform or the party would suffer still more seriously. All through the early months of 1872 a struggle went on to get a bill which should cut down the surplus without antagonizing any politically strong special interest. It could not be done. Senator Sherman finally said frankly to the lobbyists who were besieging the committee that it was to their interest to have a reduction made. “In my deliberate judgment,” he said, “it is better for the protected industries of the country that this slight reduction of duties (it was the question of a general 10 per cent reduction) should be made rather than to invite a contest which will endanger the whole system.”
After much struggle Mr. Dawes reported a bill in April, which he hoped Congress could unite on. Mr. Finkelnburg of Missouri spoke for the bill. It was not what he wanted, he said, but it should be supported, because it was a step in the right direction:
“Its chief merit,” said Mr. Finkelnburg, “lies in this, that after six years of peace it is the first bill reported to the House by a regular standing committee which proposes to make a substantial and general, though moderate reduction, in the war duties imposed upon the leading necessaries of life, the staple articles of consumption used by the people of the United States. It is the first step in the scaling downward, the inauguration of a policy of reduction, and as such I bespeak for it the support of all friends of revenue reform.
“It is true the reductions proposed in the bill are very moderate; so much so that the bill may, with apparent justice, be criticised for not going far enough. It is not what I would like to see, and far from my ideas of true revenue reform; but I gave it my support firstly, because I want to accomplish something practical, and I felt that if we asked the House to do more it would result in nothing being done; and secondly, because I recognize a fact which should govern all legislation of this kind, namely, that changes in a tariff schedule, which more or less affect business relations and values throughout a country, ought to be made slowly and gradually, step by step, leaving to the next year what remains undone in this, until we arrive at that normal point where the duties may once more assume a permanent character as they did before the war.”
It was indeed a reasonable bill to the reasonable man, but those interests which considered only themselves fought fiercely to save what the urgencies of war had given them. Many a member, it is plain from the debate, would have willingly supported a more radical lowering of duties, but he had important constituents goading him to look after them, and he dared not speak his mind freely. In many cases about the only argument these gentlemen offered was that they would willingly enough give up the duty on their coal or salt or lumber if Pennsylvania would on her iron, Michigan on her copper, Connecticut on her clocks. There was a pretty general frank admission that the high tariffs were a bad business, but “if you get it for your constituents you must give it to me for mine.” It was a phase which gave great joy to Mr. Cox, and he mocked at it in a speech long remembered:
“Let us be to each other instruments of reciprocal rapine,” said Mr. Cox. “Michigan steals on copper; Maine on lumber; Pennsylvania on iron; North Carolina on peanuts; Massachusetts on cotton goods; Connecticut on hair pins; New Jersey on spool thread; Louisiana on sugar, and so on. Why not let the gentleman from Maryland steal coal from them? True, but a comparative few get the benefit, and it comes out of the body of the people; true, it tends to high prices, but does not stealing encourage industry? Let us as moralists, if not as politicians, rewrite the eighth commandment: Thou shalt steal; because stealing is right when common.
“As I am a Representative of New York, and Onondaga, with the aid of the foreign solar artisan, evaporates salt, ought I not also to steal to help Onondaga? Stealing by tariffs, Mr. Chairman, is, as De Quincey proved of murder, a fine art. If everybody stole from everybody, is there any reproach to anybody? If everybody is a burglar, is there any need for anybody to lock up houses?
“How happy we shall be when we can all look each other in the face here, as now I look into the face of the gentleman from Massachusetts, clasp hands, and say: God bless you, my brother; you have stolen from me, and I from you; let us love one another. Then the little unprotected pigs, who are crowded by the big pigs quietly eating out of the trough, will squeal no more to be let in, for on this idea all shall be fed by swallowing each other’s food; and when all are fed, no one loses and we shall be happy.”
There was another significant feature to the debate, and that was the way it got on the nerves of Congress. Before the session was over there was an almost open admission that they did not know nor care much whether certain tariffs which were causing trouble, were just or not. For instance, Senator Logan of Illinois was greatly disturbed because the tariff on printed books was only 25 per cent, and that on the paper which made them was 31½ per cent. He argued long and earnestly over the matter, but finally was snapped off summarily by Senator Sherman. “It is like trying to row a flatboat up the Mississippi River to argue against the Committee on Finance in the Senate,” wailed poor Mr. Logan. We mean no disrespect to the gentleman, Mr. Morrill hastened to assure him, but is it any wonder we are weary of the subject and want to drop it after hearing delegations and representatives of all the parties in the business, and after having argued it out twice in committee? “No,” said Mr. Bayard of Delaware, “it is not; it only shows the folly of attempting to adjust duties in this way.” And as a matter of fact, the debate in the spring of 1872 showed, as most tariff debates have, what probably every candid member of Congress has always admitted after a few years of experience, that it is impossible for a Congress subject to the continual political and commercial pressure of private interest to make a just tariff bill.