132 THE AGRARIAN CRUSADE 



drama of unusual interest. One scene was laid in 

 Washington, where in the House and Senate and in 

 the lobbies the sub-treasury scheme was aired and 

 argued. Lending their strength to the men from 

 the mining States, the Alliance men aided the pas- 

 sage of the Silver Purchase Act, the nearest ap- 

 proach to free silver which Congress could be in- 

 duced to make. By the familiar practice of "log- 

 rolling, " the silverites prevented the passage of the 

 McKinley tariff bill until the manufacturers of the 

 East were willing to yield in part their objections 

 to silver legislation. But both the tariff and the 

 silver bill seemed to the angry farmers of the West 

 mere bones thrown to the dog under the table. 

 They had demanded free silver and had secured a 

 mere increase in the amount to be purchased ; they 

 had called for a downward revision of the duties 

 upon manufactured products and had been given 

 more or less meaningless "protection " of their farm 

 produce; they had insisted upon adequate control 

 of the trusts and had been presented with the Sher- 

 man Act, a law which might or might not curb the 

 monopolies under which they believed themselves 

 crushed. All the unrest which had been gathering 

 during the previous decade, all the venom which 

 had been distilled by fourteen cent corn and ten 



