I went into it blindly—on faith, certainly not on knowledge—and I had a handicap that I was far from realizing at the time: that was that, while in the case of the Standard Oil I had spent my life close to the events, the tariff and its makers had never touched my life. This was something that I had read in a book. Another handicap was that my indignation was directed towards legal acts. Congress had adopted these schedules, under coercion if you please, but still it had adopted them. The beneficiaries had the sanction of law. It was a different case from challenging railroad discriminations, which were forbidden by law. As I worked on the _Congressional Record_ and related documents I looked up men still living who had had a part in the struggle on one side or the other. There were many of them scattered around the country, now out of Congress for the most part, but not averse to talking. As a rule I got little from them. The fight which seemed to me so important was a dead issue to them. They had lost or won. It was all part of a game. Fresh from reading the daily discussions in the _Record_, curious about this or that man or argument, I found them hazy, often not particularly interested. There was little of the righteous indignation which I thought I found in their recorded speeches. Had that been political, instead of righteous, indignation? I began to think so. It was Grover Cleveland who put heart in me. He had lost none of his righteous indignation over the aid prohibitive tariffs were giving certain trusts, none of his alarm over the growing disparity between industry and agriculture they were fostering. He felt deeply the wrong of the prices they were inflicting on the farmer, the professional class, the poor. I got nothing but encouragement from him for the review I had planned. Luckily I already had a pleasant working relation with Mr. Cleveland. It had come about in my last two years on _McClure’s_, when my chief editorial task had been trying to persuade him that it was his duty to write his reminiscences for us, incidentally offering myself as a ghost if he felt that he needed one. As his letters to me at this time show he was not entirely unfriendly to the project: I want to do the thing; and yet I am afraid the difficulties in the way of doing it are fundamental and inexorable. You see the project requires me to exploit myself and my doings before the public. I do not see how I can do this, though I am terribly vain and often bore my friends privately by tiresome reminiscence. And yet I cannot but think that there are incidents and results in my career, which, by their narration might be of service in stimulating those who aspire to good citizenship—“and there we are.” This latter consideration hints of duty; but then comes the fear that what seems to me duty is a mere fantastic notion, and thereupon the old disinclination resumes its sway. * * * * *