The Black Swans 



handling of vital questions affecting 

 the American tariff, our offices, looking 

 out from an upper floor of the south- 

 ern facade of the Treasury, directly 

 upon the Sherman monumental group, 

 commanded a superb view of the White 

 Lot, the great shaft that commemo- 

 rates the memory of the Father of his 

 Country, and the valley of the Poto- 

 mac as far down as the Long Bridge 

 leading into Alexandria. Beyond that 

 the Virginia hills, which I never 

 contemplated without visions of Bull 

 Run, Fredericksburg, Antietam and 

 Appomattox. Even this would soon 

 have palled but for the unfailing en- 

 couragement, support, courtesy and 

 always kindly consideration of the 

 President in connection with the task 

 he had set. 



After the lapse of all these years it 

 cannot now be out of place to say 

 that no man ever approached the task 

 of revising the tariff laws of the United 

 States with higher courage or greater 



[52] 



