The Tariff in Our Times

by Ida M. Tarbell

The Republicans won the election, though not overwhelmingly. As a matter of fact, Grover Cleveland had a majority of 100,000 of the popular vote. It was not the tariff which gave them the victory. Their victory would have been a defeat if it had not been for the Democratic split which gave them New York, and the return to their fold of a certain Mugwump Republican element which had revolted in 1884 and now came back because dissatisfied with Mr. Cleveland’s civil service work.

CHAPTER VIII
THE McKINLEY BILL

There has not been a presidential election in our time when the tariff positions of the two great parties were as perfectly defined as in 1888. Each had a bill practically complete to offer the country. The Republicans had elected a president and the majority of the House of Representatives. It was natural that they should now demand that their bill be at once adopted. Although the Allison Bill had been practically finished before the election, it had not been sent to the House, because it was claimed that the Democrats were malicious enough and Mr. Cleveland clever enough to pass it in order to have a completed reform to go to the country on. The Senate bill being what we have seen, and Mr. Carlisle and Mr. Mills being the leaders of the House, such action was of course unthinkable, but it was an excuse as good as another for not sending in the bill, and no doubt was accepted by the devout.

As soon as Congress met in December the Allison Bill was taken up, again compared with the Mills Bill, and finally on January 22 passed as an amendment to the latter. In sending the bill over to the House the Senate suggested that it be referred to a Conference Committee of the two Houses. This was to avoid the objection the Democrats were sure to raise, that the Allison Bill was a violation of the Constitutional provision that all revenue measures must originate with the House. Mr. Reed and Mr. McKinley both urged the Conference. To Mr. Reed it was an absurdity that the rules in force could prevent prompt action. At least if the Democrats did refuse to allow a conference on the bill, he wanted to make sure that the country understood that it was not the Republicans who were delaying action in the all-important matter of reducing the revenue; it was the Democrats, the very gentlemen who had so long and so loudly urged the necessity of action!

Mr. McKinley’s proposition sounded reasonable. “The House,” he said, “has given to the country one bill framed upon one principle and based upon the line of party policy with which the majority is in accord. The Senate has given to the country another bill resting upon an entirely different principle and following out an entirely different line of public and party policy. The Senate has asked the House to consent to a committee of conference to consider the disagreement so presented, that they may see if in some manner this great difference between the two Houses cannot be reconciled.

“Now, what do we want to do as practical men? What does the country expect of us? We want to reduce the public revenues and we can reduce them without my friend from Texas being called upon to surrender one jot of his free-trade principles or this side surrendering one jot of its protection principles. If the House of Representatives meets the Senate in free and open conference and those provisions are adopted where the two bills meet on common ground, we can reduce the revenues from thirty-five to forty millions of dollars and still preserve for future settlement the general policy of taxation respectively adhered to by the two parties.

“All we have to do, Mr. Speaker, is to take up these two bills and look at the duties and changes in rates which are common to both. First, the abolition of the tax upon tobacco—$30,000,000; that is common to both bills. Then you take the free list; that is common to both bills. Then you take the administrative features of both bills. Both seek the same purpose; both look to an honest collection of the revenue and an honest administration of the customs laws.

“This administrative bill has nothing to do with politics; it has nothing to do with free trade; it has nothing to do with protection; it has nothing to do with party principles or policies. It is above politics and should be divorced from party. But it has everything to do with an honest administration of the customs laws, whether they are based upon the principle of protection or upon the principle of free trade.

“Now, why not, as practical men, seeking to relieve the Treasury of the United States of its congestion, as described by the President of the United States, meet this condition and relieve the Treasury of its accumulating surplus and leave this vast sum of money with the people, where it belongs? ‘It is not a theory; it is a condition.’ Shall we run away from the condition which we can in part relieve, or waste our valuable time now upon theory?”

The answers of Mr. Mills and his supporters to these arguments were as indignant as to be expected. “Mr. Speaker,” said Mr. Mills, “we have sent to the Senate a bill to reduce taxation. They had originated in that Chamber, or were preparing before we sent this bill to them, in defiance of the Constitution, a bill increasing taxation on the people of this country, an act which they were prohibited by the great charter of our fathers from doing. They have sent that bill so prepared here in defiance of the rules of this House, and it is now proposed that we accept their invitation to appoint a committee of conference and pass this extraordinary measure, and that, too, at a time when the coffers of this Government are loaded with the excess of revenue, at a time when the people of this country are groaning with unnecessary taxation; a bill to reduce the revenues by destroying the commerce of the country and increasing the load of taxation upon the people for private purposes.”