“What can be said of the capacity of the majority of the Committee on Ways and Means as evidenced by the bill now before us? It is a confession upon its face of absolute incapacity to grapple with the great subject. The Morrison bill will never be suspected of having passed the scrutiny of intelligent experts like the Tariff Commission. This is a revision by the crosscut process. It gives no evidences of the expert’s skill. It is the invention of indolence—I will not say of ignorance, for the gentlemen of the majority of the Committee on Ways and Means are competent to prepare a tariff bill. I repeat, it is not only the invention of indolence, but it is the mechanism of a botch workman. A thousand times better refer the question to an intelligent Commission, which will study the question in its relations to the revenues and industries of the country, than to submit to a bill like this. “They have determined upon doing something, no matter how mischievous, that looks to the reduction of import duties; and doing it, too, in spite of the fact that not a single request has come either from the great producing or great consuming classes of the United States for any change in the direction proposed. With the power in their hands they have determined to put the knife in, no matter where it cuts nor how much blood it draws. It is the volunteer surgeon, unbidden, insisting upon using the knife upon a body that is strong and healthy; needing only rest and release from the quack whose skill is limited to the horizontal amputation, and whose science is barren of either knowledge or discrimination. And then it is not to stop with one horizontal slash; it is to be followed by another and still another, until there is nothing left either of life or hope. And the doctrinaires will then have seen an exemplification of their pet science in the destruction of the great productive interests of the country, and “the starving poor,” as denominated by the majority, will be found without work, shelter or food. The sentiment of this country is against any such indiscriminate proposition. The petitions before the Ways and Means Committee from twenty to thirty States of this Union appeal to Congress to let the tariff rest where it is, in general, while others are equally importunate to have the duties on two or three classes of American products raised. The laboring men are unanimous against this bill. These appeals should not go unheeded. The farmers for whom you talk so eloquently, have not asked for it. There is no appeal from any American interest for this legislation.