“It is well, if this bill is to go into force, that on yesterday the other branch of Congress, the Senate, passed a Bankruptcy bill. It is a fitting corollary to the Morrison bill; it is a proper and a necessary companion. The Senate has done wisely, in anticipation of our action here, in providing legal means for settling with creditors, for wiping out balances, and rolling from the shoulders of our people the crushing burdens which this bill will impose.” And in spite of a Democratic majority the Morrison bill failed. That thrust—“the invention of indolence”—went home; and the nation resented the slipshod manner in which its public servants had done their work. And the Representative from Illinois brought from the wreck of his losing battle no more than the comfort of realizing that to the end of his life he would be known by the appropriate title, “Horizontal Bill Morrison.” But the crusade against protection was too attractive to abandon. In 1888, the House being again Democratic, Roger Q. Mills of Texas, was made chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and he brought in a bill that expressed really all that was best in the opposition’s case. But he made the fatal mistake of presenting a bill prepared by his political associates alone. It was more fair, more broad in its scope, more statesmanlike than anything that had previously emanated from the camp of free traders. But he had invited no Republican member of the committee to its preparation, and excluded all who would advise or instruct him. He might have welcomed them in safety, for he had the votes at his back to defeat every recommendation they might make, and adopt every paragraph that commended itself to him. But he saw fit to refuse audience to representatives of industrial concerns who knew far more of the subject than did Mr. Mills or his advisers, and an opposition suddenly sprung up which could not be overcome. Mr. McKinley made his most telling point against the Mills bill, in these burning words: