HARRISON 



2698 



HARRISON 



tial election of 1888 drew near, he became 

 Indiana's "favorite son." The leader of the 

 Republican party, James G. Elaine, declined to 

 be a candidate for President, and Harrison was 

 nominated on the eighth ballot at the national 

 convention. 



The campaign was waged chiefly on the 

 tariff issue, the Republicans declaring them- 

 selves "uncompromisingly in favor of the 

 American system of protection." The Demo- 

 crats, who had nominated President Cleveland 

 for reelection, demanded "the reduction and 

 correction of the burdens of taxation;" in 

 other words, the latter demanded tariff re- 

 form. Somewhat to the nation's surprise, Har- 

 rison was chosen by an electoral vote of 233 

 to 168 for Cleveland, although Cleveland re- 

 ceived 100,000 more popular votes than Harri- 

 son. 



His Administration (1889-1893). At its first 

 session after Harrison's inauguration, Congress 

 undertook to fulfill the campaign promises of 

 the Republicans, and within a year placed on 

 the statute books the Sherman Silver Purchase 

 Act, the McKinley Tariff Act and the Sherman 

 Anti-Trust Act. These laws were supported 

 by a very small majority in the House of 

 Representatives, and would probably have 

 failed to pass except for a change in the rules 

 by which the House managed its affairs. Previ- 

 ously it was possible for members to delay 

 definite action on any bill by filibustering, that 

 is, either by making irrelevant and unnecessary 

 motions or simply by refusing to answer to 

 their names when called on to vote. Unless a 

 majority answered to their names, it was the 

 practice to rule that a. quorum was not present. 

 Speaker Thomas B. Reed, largely with the 

 assistance of William McKinley and Joseph G. 

 Cannon, forced the House to adopt the so- 

 called "Reed rules," which greatly increased the 

 Speaker's power. Henceforth the Speaker 

 could suppress or disregard unnecessary mo- 

 tions and was allowed to count members who 

 were present but not voting, in order to make 

 a quorum. These changes laid the basis for 

 the development of the Speaker's power, which 

 only came to an end in 1910 (see CANNON, 

 JOSEPH GURNEY). 



The McKinley Tariff Act was named for its 

 author, later President of the United States. 

 It provided a high protective tariff on imports, 

 the exact reverse of the Democratic principle 

 of "tariff for revenue only." The public, un- 

 fortunately, did not regard the law as satis- 

 factory, and expressed its disapproval in the 



autumn elections of 1890 by giving the Demo- 

 crats a majority in the House of Representa- 

 tives. Another law of 1890 was the Sherman 

 Anti-Trust Law (for details, see TRUSTS), one 

 of the most important laws passed by Congress 

 since the War of Secession. 



John Sherman, the author of the Anti-Trust 

 Act, was chairman of a committee in the 

 Senate which reported for passage a new Silver 

 Purchase Act. The Bland- Allison Act of 1878, 

 which required the Treasury to buy $2,000,000 

 worth of silver each month, no longer satisfied 

 the silver interests, which were already de- 

 manding the free and unlimited coinage of 

 silver. So strong were the "silverites" in both 



ELECTION OF 1888 



Shaded states, Republican, electing Harrison : 

 states shown in black, Democratic, voted for 

 Cleveland. White divisions represent non-voting 

 territories. 



houses of Congress that further legislation was 

 inevitable. Harrison proposed a compromise, 

 which was adopted in the Sherman Act. The 

 Secretary of the Treasury was required to buy 

 4,500,000 ounces, or about 140 tons, of silver 

 each month, and to issue treasury certificates in 

 exchange to the full market value of the bul- 

 lion. While it is now generally admitted that 

 the law was a mistake, and was at least partly 

 responsible for the panic of 1893, it had one 

 good result in that it showed the impossibility 

 of compromise, and brought the country to 

 face a clear-cut issue between the gold standard 

 and the free coinage of silver. 



The Surplus and Its Reduction. For a num- 

 ber of years the United States Treasury had 

 been confronted with a growing surplus of 

 gold in reserve; in other words, the govern- 

 ment was receiving more money than it was 

 spending. During Harrison's administration 

 Congress passed several laws which materially 

 altered the situation. The laws were not 

 passed primarily because there was a surplus, 

 but without the surplus they would certainly 



