216 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. (THE TARIFF LAW.) 



"I repeat that the Senator from Ohio threat- 

 ened the Senate with the defeat of the whole 

 bill. After all sorts of efforts, and when he 

 had drawn the party whip over the heads of 

 his followers with an audacity I had never 

 seen equaled in any public assembly, by threats 

 and every other means that a great, bold par- 

 liamentary leader can assert over the men who 

 look up to him, he finally succeeded in having 

 $6.50 imposed as the tax upon pig-iron. 



" That was the last cent he could obtain by 

 promises, flattery, or threats, but his resources 

 were not exhausted. The conference com- 

 mittee met, and under the lead of the Senator 

 from Ohio, I may safely assume, at his dicta- 

 tion, they have imposed a tax upon pig-iron 

 of $6.72 per ton and insist that we must accept 

 it. What is the effect of that? Of scrap and 

 pig iron 763,761 tons were imported last year. 

 Seventy-two cents increase over the $6 that 

 the Senate had agreed upon until the Senator 

 from Ohio drove his party up to an increase, 

 would be $549,905. Twenty-two cents per 

 ton being the difference between this report 

 and $6.50, the highest point to which the Sena- 

 tor could induce the Senate to advance after 

 all the coercion he could impose upon his fol- 

 lowers 22 cents per ton on 763,761 tons is 

 $169,027 additional tax that this conference 

 committee has placed upon pig-iron ; and we 

 all know that we have to accept that report as 

 a whole or reject it. 



"What next? Take railway-bars. I want 

 the conferees on the part of the Senate to tell 

 the Senate why they have imposed the tax 

 they have in the report they present for our 

 acceptance. Let me show what they have 

 done. This is another undoubted usurpation 

 of power by the conference committee. Steel 

 railway-bars were put by the Senate at seven 

 tenths of one cent a pound when weighing 

 more than twenty-five pounds to the yard. 

 That is $15.68 per ton. The House voted on 

 that question also; if we are to look to the 

 House, it imposed a tax of $15 per ton on rails. 

 The House voted for a tax of 68 cents a ton 

 lower than the Senate on steel railway-bars, 

 the House bill providing for a duty of $15 and 

 the Senate bill $15.68 a ton. Bear these facts 

 in mind. 



"What did the conferees do? They have 

 imposed a tax upon steel railway-bars of $17 

 per ton. The Senate had imposed a tax of 

 $15.68, the House $15. The conferees, pur- 

 porting to meet for the purpose of reconciling 

 the disagreeing votes between the two Houses, 

 imposed a tax on that article of $17 per ton, 

 or $2 more than the House had imposed upon 

 it and $1.82 more than the Senate had imposed 

 upon it. I again ask any of them to rise now 

 and tell the Senate by what authority they 

 seek to impose a higher tax on this important 

 article than either House imposed. I charge 

 them with a gross violation of their power and 

 a usurpation of authority not granted to them 

 in doing so. 



" The amount of importation of that class of 

 steel rails during the last year was about 200,- 



000 tons. The report of the conference as 

 to the tax upon that article is an increase of 

 $400,000 on last year's imports over what the 

 House had agreed to impose upon it, and of 

 $264,000 over what the Senate had imposed 

 upon it ; and yet under pretense of reconciling 

 the disagreeing votes of the two Houses they 

 imposed an additional tax upon the people of 

 $400,000 more than the House of Representa- 

 tives had demanded and $264,000 more than 

 the Senate had said ought to be imposed. If 

 that is not an outrage upon the rights of this 

 people, if it is not a violation of the known 

 duty of the committee, while pretending to 

 reconcile the disagreeing or conflicting votes 

 between the two Houses, by placing a tax 

 higher than either House had suggested, then 



1 do not understand what it is, and can hardly 

 characterize it as I ought in parliamentary lan- 

 guage. 



" Again, the Senate agreed upon a duty on 

 bar-iron not less than three quarters of an inch 

 in diameter and square iron not more than 

 three quarters of an inch square of $20 per 

 ton, and upon round iron less than three quar- 

 ters of an inch square of $22 per ton ; the con- 

 ferees have increased th'at tax from $20 per 

 ton in the one instance to $22.40 per ton, and 

 in the other from $22 a ton to $24.64 per ton ; 

 the original rates were fixed by the Senate with 

 the aid and by the vote of the Senator from 

 Ohio, one of the conferees. We had a right to 

 suppose that he would adhere to his own votes, 

 yet after so voting and advocating the lower 

 rates, saying that his friend from Georgia (Mr. 

 Brown) was right in imposing these rates, he 

 now turns round in secret conference and im- 

 poses upon all the iron rolled, hammered, or 

 otherwise advanced an additional tax of $2.40 

 a ton upon one class and $2.64 upon the other. 



" Again, Mr. President, passing on to anoth- 

 er clause, light steel rails, of which there is a 

 very large importation, to wit, a class of rails 

 used for street-railways, tramways, narrow- 

 gauge roads, and inclined planes, in short all 

 thnt class of rails generally used by the smaller 

 and poorer corporations, by the municipal au- 

 thorities, or by individuals, of which the impor- 

 tation last year was $2,658.997 in value and the 

 revenue $1,414,910, the Senate of the United 

 States imposed a duty of eight tenths of a 

 cent per pound upon all that class of goods, 

 or $17.92 per ton. 1 have not had an oppor- 

 tunity of examining what the House did in that 

 regard, if their bill is to be considered. It 

 seems to be worthy of consideration, according 

 to the chairman's view, whenever the conferees 

 think they find some excuse for their conduct 

 by referring to what the House has done, and 

 claim that the House had no bill when they 

 increase taxes beyond what either House im- 

 posed. 



"Under the present law iron bars for in- 

 clined planes, as the official statement in my 



