%557. The Panic of 1893.%--Business depression and "tight money" followed. Over three hundred banks suspended or failed, manufactories all over the country shut down, and a period of great distress set in. People, alarmed at the condition of the banks, began to draw their deposits and hoard them, thereby causing such a scarcity of bills of small denominations that a "currency famine" was threatened. %558. The Purchase of Silver stopped.%--Believing that the fear that we should soon be "on a silver basis" had much to do with this state of affairs, and that the compulsory purchase of silver each month had much to do with the fear, the President assembled Congress in special session, August 7, and asked for the repeal of that clause of the Sherman Act of 1890 which required a monthly purchase of silver. After a struggle in which both of the old parties were split, the compulsory purchase clause was repealed, November 1, 1893. %559. The Silver Movement.%--The steady fall in the bullion value of silver was a serious blow to the prosperity of the great silver-producing states,--Colorado, Montana, Idaho, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, and the territories of Arizona and New Mexico,--where silver mining was "the very heart from which every other industry receives support." In Colorado alone 15,000 miners were made idle. To the people of this section, some 2,000,000 in number, the silver question was of vital importance; and, alarmed at the call for the special session of Congress and the possible repeal of the silver-purchase clause, they held a convention at Denver, with a view to affecting public sentiment. A few weeks after, the National Bimetallic League met at Chicago. Both opposed the repeal, and demanded that if the government ceased to buy silver, the mints should be opened to free coinage. This the friends of silver in the Senate attempted in vain to bring about. %560. The Industrial Depression; the Wilson Bill.%--The industrial revival which it was hoped would follow the repeal of the silver-purchase law did not take place. Prices did not rise; failures continued; the long-silent mills did not reopen; gold continued to leave the country, imports fell off, and, when the year ended, the receipts of the government were $34,000,000 behind the expenditures. With this condition of the Treasury facing it, Congress met in December, 1893. The Democrats were in control, and pledged to revise the tariff; and true to the pledge, William L. Wilson of West Virginia, Chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, presented a new tariff bill (the Wilson Bill) which after prolonged debate passed both Houses and became a law at midnight, August 27, 1894, without the President's signature. As it was expected that the revenue yielded would not be sufficient to meet the expenses of government, one section of the law provided for a tax of two per cent on all incomes above $4000. This the Supreme Court afterwards declared unconstitutional.