Fifty Years of Public Service / Personal Recollections of Shelby M. Cullom, Senior United States Senator from Illinois

by Shelby M. Cullom

Before leaving Washington for the convention I called to see the President to learn what information he had to impart to me as one of the delegates who expected to support him. He was more friendly, free, and frank than he had ever been during his term as President. We talked about different things, and in the course of the conversation he adverted to Secretary Blaine.

Harrison and Blaine had fallen out. Jealousy was probably at the bottom of their disaffection. Harrison did not treat Blaine with that degree of confidence and courtesy one would expect from the Chief Executive to the premier of his cabinet; while on the other hand Blaine hated Harrison and was plotting more or less against him while he was a member of the cabinet. The President talked very freely about Mr. Blaine. He declared that he had been doing the work of the State Department himself for a year or more; that he had prepared every important official document, and had the originals in his own handwriting in the desk before him. And yet, he said, Mr. Blaine, as Secretary of State, was giving out accounts of what was being done in the State Department, taking all the credit to himself. He expressed himself as being perfectly willing, to use a familiar figure, to carry a soldier's knapsack when the soldier was sore of foot and tired, and all that he wanted in return was acknowledgment of the act and a show of appreciation. This was all he expected of Mr. Blaine. He said, in closing the conversation, that he intended some day to disclose the true condition of their relations.

The Harrison Administration was a very busy one, and should have been a very satisfactory one to the country at large. The first great subject taken up by Congress was the tariff, the final disposition of which was embodied in what afterwards became known as the "McKinley Tariff Bill." I never thought that Mr. McKinley showed any particular skill in framing that tariff. My understanding is that it was prepared by the majority of the Committee on Ways and Means.

The manufacturers of the country appeared before that committee and made known what protective duties they thought they ought to have in order to carry on their industries, and the committee gave them just about the rate of duty they desired. It was a high protective tariff, dictated by the manufacturers of the country. It resulted in a great stimulus to the country's industries, and great prosperity followed its enactment. It has been difficult from then till now to reduce duties below the McKinley rate. The manufacturers have since persisted and insisted upon higher duties than they really ought to have.

I may remark here, in passing, that the McKinley Law was not passed until October, and we were immediately plunged into the campaign. The McKinley Law was the issue, and the Democrats swept everything before them, carrying the House by the overwhelming majority of ninety-seven. The Senate still remained Republican, forty-seven Republicans to thirty-nine Democrats. McKinley himself was beaten and never afterwards returned to Congress.

It is strange what a revolution periodically occurs among the voters of the United States. When the Mills Bill was the issue the Democratic party was beaten, and badly beaten; the Republican party came into power; the McKinley Bill was passed, and we suffered about as bad a defeat as had the Democrats two years previously. The difference was that the Democrats were cleaned out on the shadow of an issue, without the reality (the Mills Bill never having become a law), and we went down in defeat on the reality, the McKinley Bill having become a law.

It was during this time also that the bill known as the Sherman Law, or the Coinage Act of 1890, was passed, which directed the purchase of silver bullion to the aggregate of 4,500,000 ounces in each month, and the issuance for such purchases silver bullion treasury notes. This was probably the beginning of the silver agitation. It created a long discussion in the Senate and House, and that subject was constantly before Congress until it was finally settled by the election of McKinley, in 1896.

It was this Congress also that passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (April 8, 1890). It was one of the most important enactments ever passed by Congress; and yet, if it were strictly and literally enforced, the business of the country would have come to a standstill. The courts have given it a very broad construction, making it cover contracts never contemplated when the act was passed. It was never seriously enforced until the coming in of the Roosevelt Administration, when the great prosperity brought about under the McKinley Administration tended to the formation of vast combinations which seriously threatened the country. The people do not seem disposed to consent even to its amendment, much less its repeal; and yet we all realize that if strictly enforced as construed by our courts, it would materially affect the business prosperity of the nation. The people take the same attitude towards the Sherman Law as they take toward the anti-pooling section of the Interstate Commerce Act; they will allow neither of them to be tampered with by Congress. There has been considerable dispute as to the paternity of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. Senator Hoar claims he wrote it; it bears Senator Sherman's name; and my own opinion is that Senator Edmunds had more to do with framing it than any other one Senator.

It was during the first and second session of the Fifty-first Congress that the Federal Election Bill, so-called, or as it is familiarly known, the "Force Bill," was discussed. It was in charge of Senator Hoar, and occupied the attention of both sessions for a long time. The Republicans seemed determined to force it through, but the Democrats from the South were bitterly opposed to it, resorting to all sorts of tactics to kill or delay it.

This measure I never considered much of a "force" bill. I could never see that there was any force to it, but on the contrary, considered it a very mild measure, and gave it my support. The opposition to it was so bitter and strong and so skillfully managed by the late Senator Gorman on the part of the minority, and it stood for so long a time in the way of other legislation, that one after Senator Wolcott arose in his seat and, very much to the astonishment of every one, moved to lay it aside and take up some other bill. The motion carried, and that was the last we heard of the Force Bill.