2

of the administration.1 McKinley made a sincere attempt to obtain international bimetallism but, when Great Britain blocked the way, he appreciated that business in the United States must be conducted on the single gold standard. In the attempt to secure this by proper legislation, he said, in a confidential talk with Senator Hanna and Secretary Alger on one of the last evenings of August, 1897, the Republican party may go down and I may go down with it but, after that temporary sacrifice, the Republican party devoted to such a noble cause will rise again.

Everything was in proper shape to enact a protective tariff to take the place of the Democratic Act of 1894. It had been tacitly agreed that Thomas B. Reed should be reëlected Speaker of the new House, and Nelson Dingley, also of Maine, should be chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means; this tacit agreement was at once carried into effect. This Committee, which was substantially the same as that of the preceding Congress, had at that session, after hearing abundant testimony, prepared a tariff bill which was now introduced into the House and passed on March 31. The Senate offered many amendments and did not pass their bill until July 7, when it went to a Committee of conference whose report was adopted by the House on July 19 by yeas 187, nays 116, and by the Senate on July 24 by yeas 40, nays 30; on this day the President signed it and it became a law.

"We expect," Dingley had written in a private letter, "to cut nearly all our duties considerably below those of

1 Life of McKinley, Olcott, i. 358. It was a concurrent resolution. It passed the Senate by a vote of 47: 32 on Jan. 28, 1898, and was rejected by the House on Jan. 31, the vote standing 133: 181. * Ibid., 355.

the Act of 1890." To no better man could the tariff bill have been confided. No one in public life, except McKinley and Senator Aldrich, understood the subject better. For Dingley, it was a labor of love, and with the assistance especially of Sereno E. Payne of New York and John Dalzell of Pennsylvania, fellow members of the Committee, he presented to the House "a fairly good protectionist measure." 2 As showing the confidence felt in him by the President, he had been offered the Treasury Department which, on account of a question of health, he had declined, but saying at the same time that he could do more for the success of the administration as chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means than he could in the Treasury. The measure is quite properly called the Dingley Act and is so known in history.

When Nelson W. Aldrich of Rhode Island reported the bill from the Senate Committee on Finance, he said that it was "thoroughly understood throughout the country in the last political campaign, that if the Republican party should be again entrusted with power, no extreme tariff legislation would follow." Dingley and Aldrich expressed the idea of the Republican leaders and, while the House was readily controlled by the power of the Speaker Thomas B. Reed, it was quite different when the tariff question was opened up in the Senate. It was as John Sherman had previously said, "When Republicans and Democrats together are framing a tariff, each Member or Senator consults the interest of his 'district' or State." 5

1 Tarbell, Tariff in Our Time, 242.

Life and Times of Nelson Dingley, 413. Stanwood, American Tariff Controversies, ii. 884. * Recollections, ii. 1085.

2

* Ibid.,

243.

A feature of the case in hand is told by Edward Stanwood, "The plans of the Republican leaders were overturned ... by senators who were more in favor of silver than of a protective tariff." 1 The Dingley Act, when it became a law, had rates of duty higher than they had been under any preceding tariff. The McKinley Act was a 49 per cent tariff, the Wilson, 40 to 41, while the percentage of the Dingley Act ran from 493 to 52.3

McKinley enjoyed the first few months of his presidential life more than the later ones. As he did the honors of the White House, he appeared to have lived there always, so well did he fit into the place. He had a genuine liking for his predecessor. "Fine old fellow, wasn't he?" was a not uncommon remark to his Secretary. Alive to the power and influence of the presidential office, he said to Cleveland as they drove together to the Capitol on Inauguration Day, "What an impressive thing it is to assume tremendous responsibilities!" And Cleve1 Stanwood, ii. 386.

Noyes, Amer. Finance, 269.

* Ibid., 391.

The Dingley Act reimposed the duties on wool; brought about a duty on hides that had been on the free list since 1872; imposed lower duties on cotton goods than those of 1890 but higher on silks and linens; restored the rates on chinaware of 1890. Iron ore was dutiable at 40¢, pig iron at $4, steel rails $7.84 per ton, the same as in 1894. Tin plate under the Act of 1890 paid 24, in 1894, 1, and in 1897, 1 per pound. On sugar the differential was the same as under the act of 1894. "But the moral effect was very different. The House in 1897 had adopted the plan of leaving things as they were and had successfully resisted the effort of the refining monopoly to secure more." Taussig. Tariff History, 5th ed., 328, 332, 335, 336, 342, 347, 352. See also correspondence in Life and Times of Dingley, 424 et seq.

"The Dingley Act restored the duty on works of art, free under the Tariff of 1894." —Tarbell, 243. "European travellers could bring in free only one hundred dollars worth of goods bought abroad."-Dingley, 443. "The tariff of 1897 like that of 1890 was the outcome of an aggressive spirit of protection." - Taussig, 358.

* Olcott, ii. 367.