190 



CONGRESS. (THE TARIFF BILL.) 



knew then of no such amendments. Two or 

 three days afterward my colleague on the com- 

 mittee, the Senator from Arkansas, came to me 

 with a number of amendments, which were after- 

 ward adopted and sent to the conference com- 

 mittee. 



' I found many of them such that 1 was com- 

 pelled to resist their adoption ; conspicuously, as 

 I now remember, the duties upon cotton yarns 

 and cutlery, and the metal schedule generally. 

 He appealed to me to withdraw my objection, 

 and in argument upon the question stated that 

 the Secretary of the Treasury had passed upon 

 every one of the amendments and agreed to 

 t hem ; that he had also seen the President of 

 the United States, who had told him that the 

 bill as proposed to be amended would be accept- 

 able to him, and had concluded his conversation 

 with him in these words, as far as I remember : 

 ' I am willing to do or say anything that will 

 pass this bill through Congress.' Then I said : 

 ' This is to receive the support of the Adminis- 

 tration ? Let us distinctly understand each 

 other. If we go into this fight it will be a close 

 one, and we must have the President and his 

 Administration with us.' 



" The Senator from Arkansas assured me that 

 this would be the fact. I gave up my personal 

 opinions; I went into the contest and have done 

 my duty; and for the first time when his letter 

 was read in the House of Representatives I as- 

 certained that the President of the United States 

 is against the bill as passed by the Senate." 



Mr. Jones, of Arkansas, made this statement in 

 answer to Mr. Gorman's challenge : 



" After I had talked with each man who was 

 opposing the bill and had noted on the margin 

 of the bill I had every objection presented by 

 each of them, and after 1 had gone over the mar- 

 ginal notes and made up my mind about exactly 

 what were the smallest modifications which 

 would at all meet the difficulties which were in 

 the way, the first step I took after reaching that 

 point was to go to the Secretary of the Treasury. 

 Before beginning this attempt at a compromise 

 bill, I had previously talked with him and the 

 President about the idea I had of the possibility 

 of some sort of a compromise being accomplished. 

 Both thought it was wise to undertake exactly 

 the course that I pursued. 



" After finding out what these gentlemen on 

 our side of the Chamber said and their objections, 

 I went to the Secretary of the Treasury with my 

 bill in my hand. I went clear throug'h the bill 

 from one end to the other. I gave him every 

 solitary proposed amendment. He and I to- 

 gether went over the data ; we went over the re- 

 ports of the Treasury Department ; we consid- 

 ered the bearing and effect of each proposed 

 change, what the law was under the McKinley 

 act, what it was to be under the Wilson bill, and 

 what changes the proposed Senate amendments 

 would produce. After we had gone over each of 

 these items one by one, I asked him the ques- 

 tion as to what he thought ought to be done ; 

 whether, if we could bring 43 Democrats to sup- 

 port the bill thus modified, we could afford to 

 make the concessions, which neither he nor I nor 

 a large majority on this side of the Chamber 

 wanted to make, but if it was better under the 

 circumstances for us to do it. He said there was 



no doubt about it in his mind for a single mo- 

 ment. 



" Then, as the President would not perhaps 

 have the time necessary to go through each of 

 the items and to figure out its bearing and result, 

 I asked the Secretary of the Treasury, as the head 

 of the Treasury Department, the representative 

 of that branch of the Government, to let the 

 President know just what these proposed amend- 

 ments meant, telling him at the same time that 

 I had not proposed the amendments to the Fi- 

 nance Committee ; that they had not been shown 

 to a single member of the Finance Committee, 

 and nobody knew of their exact existence ; that 

 not one of the Senators who were insisting on 

 changes knew what the others had proposed ; 

 that 1 alone had all the facts and all the informa- 

 tion as to the position of these different men 

 bearing on the subject. 



" In a day or two I called on the President, 

 and asked him if the Secretary had made the 

 statement to him and explained to him the pro- 

 posed changes of the bill. He said he had. I 

 then said : ' Mr. President, I will not take one 

 step further in this matter unless this proposed 

 compromise meets the approval of the Adminis- 

 tration. It must be indorsed by you and the 

 Secretary of the Treasury or I will go no fur- 

 ther.' He then said to me (almost in the lan- 

 guage the Senator from Missouri has just quoted, 

 and which I reported to him) that he would do 

 and say anything he could to effect a compro- 

 mise; 'that it was a wise thing and a proper 

 thing to do." 



Mr. Harris, of Tennessee, said, on the same 

 theme, that he had spoken to the President, after 

 the measure had passed both Houses and gone to 

 the conference committee, and understood him 

 to favor the Senate bill if nothing better were 

 attainable. 



" My distinct understanding in that interview 

 was that the President desired that we should 

 pass the bill as it had passed the Senate, if we 

 could make no better terms. He was decidedly 

 in favor of its passage in that form if the Senate 

 could not recede from its amendments. He ex- 

 pressed to the Senator from Arkansas and myself 

 the hope that we could in some way arrange to 

 put coal and iron ore on the free list, but I told 

 him I feared that it would be utterly impossible 

 to do so. My understanding as to the result of 

 that interview is that the President was decided- 

 ly in favor of passing the bill as it passed the 

 Senate if no better terms could be made with 

 those Senators to whom the concessions had been 

 made." 



Mr. Gorman continued : " As I have said, sir, 

 this is a most extraordinary proceeding, for a 

 Democrat, elected to the highest place in the 

 Government, and fellow-Democrats in another 

 high place, where they have the right to speak 

 and legislate generally, to join with the com- 

 mune in traducing the Senate of the United 

 States, to blacken the character of Senators who 

 are as honorable as they are, who are as patriotic 

 as they ever can be, who have done as much to 

 serve their party as the men who are now the 

 beneficiaries of your labor and mine, to taunt and 

 jeer us before the country as the advocates of 

 trust, and guilty of dishonor and perfidy. 



" Mr. President, it is time to speak. The limit 



