General Schenck's bill passed the House, June 6th, 1870, General Garfield voting for it in company with all the protectionists in that body. It passed the Senate during the same month, such leading protectionists as Senators Howe, Scott, Morrill, of Vermont, Sherman and Wilson, voting for it. The bill reduced the duties on a long list of articles-pig iron, for instance, from nine dollars to seven dollars-but it was a triumph of the protective policy and a disastrous defeat of the freetraders and revenue reformers, who had favored still lower duties. It embodied provisions that are retained in the existing tariff, with which all protectionists are entirely satisfied.

In 1872, two years after the passage of General Schenck's bill, a bill to reduce duties on imports and to reduce internal taxes was reported to the House of Representatives, by Mr. Dawes, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and after discussion it passed by a large majority, such prominent protectionists as Dawes, Frye, Foster, Frank W. Palmer, Ellis H. Roberts, William A. Wheeler, and George F. Hoar voting for it. General Garfield voted for it. Judge Kelley and sixty other protectionists voted against it. It became a law, passed the Senate by a two-thirds vote, such leading protectionists as Ferry, Howe, the two Morrills, Morton, Sherman and Wilson, supporting it. Protectionists, as will be seen, were not united upon the merits of this bill, which,

among other provisions, reduced the duty on many iron and steel products ten per cent., but there was no conflict of principle involved in their differences-nothing but a question of expediency.

Says a recent writer on this subject, giving a page of its history:

"In 1875, three years after the passage of the bill just referred to, Mr. Dawes, still chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, reported a bill to further protect the sinking fund and to provide for the exigencies of the Government, which provided among other things for the restoration of the ten per cent. which had been taken from the duties on iron and steel by the act of 1872. This bill passed the House by a close vote, General Garfield voting for it, as did nearly every protectionist in the House. The bill passed the Senate and became a law, the vote being very close-yeas, 30; nays, 29. The protectionists in the Senate were almost unanimously in favor of it. Mr. Sherman made a strong speech against it, and Mr. Scott and Mr. Frelinghuysen very ably supported it. Mr. Sherman voted against it. The passage of this bill gave great encouragement to our prostrated iron and steel industries.

"The next tariff measure that came before Congress was the bill of Mr. Morrison, which was presented in the House in 1876, but was so vigorously opposed that it never reached the dignity of a square vote upon its merits. Two years afterward Mr. Wood undertook the preparation of a tariff bill ' which greatly reduced duties on most articles of foreign manufacture, and which he confidently hoped might become a law. This bill possessed more vitality than that of Mr. Morrison's, and it was with great difficulty that the friends of pro- · tection were able to secure its defeat. On the 4th of June General Garfield delivered an elaborate speech against it in committee of the whole, in the course of which he said:

"I would have the duty so adjusted that every great American industry can fairly live and make fair profits. The chief charge I make against this bill is that it seeks to cripple the protective features of the law.'

"He further said, in concluding his speech:

"A bill so radical in its character, so dangerous to our business prosperity, would work infinite mischief at this time, when the country is just recovering itself from a long period of depression and getting again upon solid ground, just coming up out of the wild sea of panic and distress which has tossed us so long.

"Let it be remembered that twenty-two per cent. of all the laboring people of this country are artisans engaged in manufactures. Their culture has been fostered by our tariff laws. It is their pursuits and the skill which they have developed that produced the glory of our Centennial Exhibition. To them the country owes the splendor of the position it holds before the world more than to any other equal number of our citizens. If this bill becomes a law, it strikes down their occupation and throws into the keenest distress the brightest and best elements of our population.

"When the first paragraph has been read I will propose to strike out the enacting clause. If the committee will do that we can kill the bill to-day.'

"On the day following the delivery of General Garfield's speech his suggestion to strike out the enacting clause was carried into effect, upon motion of Mr. Conger, and the bill was killed; yeas, 134; nays, 121. The majority against the bill was only 13.

"During the recent session of Congress a vigorous effort was made to break down the tariff by piecemeal legislation. 'Divide and conquer' was the motto of the free-traders. They were defeated in every effort to reduce duties, and in every · instance they encountered General Garfield's opposition. Iron and steel manufacturers have good cause to remember his vote in the Ways and Means Committee last March on the bill of Mr. Covert to reduce the duty on steel rails. General Garfield voted with Judge Kelley and Messrs. Conger, Frye, Felton, Gibson and Phelps against any reduction, and

that was the end of Mr. Covert's bill-the vote being seven against to six in favor of it. Had the bill prevailed the entire line of duties on iron and steel and other manufactures would have been seriously endangered."

A word on another question of political economy to close this chapter appropriately, remembering the national work this year, is found in General Garfield's speech urging the importance of the last census:

"The developments of statistics are causing history to be re-written. Till recently the historian studied nature in the aggregate, and gave us only the story of princes, dynasties, sieges and battles. Of the people themselves-the great social body, with life, growth, forces, elements, etc.—he told us nothing. Now, statistical inquiry leads him into the hovels, homes, workshops, mines, fields, prisons, hospitals, and all places where human nature displays its weakness and strength. In these explorations he discovers the seed of national growth and decay, and thus becomes the prophet of his generation.

"Statistical science is indispensable to modern statesmanship. In legislation, as in physical science, it is beginning to be understood that we can control terrestrial forces only by obeying their laws. The legislator must formulate in his statistics not only the national will, but also those great laws of social life revealed by statistics. He must study society rather than black-letter learning. He must learn the truth that 'society usually prepares the crime, and the criminal is only the instrument that completes it;' that statesmanship consists rather in removing causes than in punishing or evading results."

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CHAPTER XXII.

G

ARRAIGNING HIS ENEMIES.

ENERAL GARFIELD has ever dealt his enemies in Congress sledge-hammer blows, and yet not with any malignity or from the sly hand of revenge. His tongue has only been moved by what he considered the necessities of the situation. The inheritance of tradition from his district would, if no other cause had prompted, have allied him with the North when the Rebellion became a question for each and every one. His vigorous, clear mind needed no words to shape its course. Whenever the Union was concerned he answered every call with electric readiness.

One of his early speeches in Congress gave him high oratorical rank. Alexander Long, of Ohio, delivered in 1864 an exceedingly ultra PeaceDemocratic speech-proposing that Congress should recognize the Southern Confederacy. The speech attracted marked attention, and by common consent it was left to the young member, so fresh from the battle-fields of his country, to reply. The moment Long took his seat, Garfield rose. His opening sentence thrilled his listeners. In a moment he was surrounded by a crowd of mem