With glee the Republicans taunted the Democrats that their professions were one thing and their performances another. "This is not a protective bill," said Senator O. H. Platt, of Connecticut. "It is not in any sense a recognition of the doctrine of protection high or low. It is not a bill for revenue with incidental protection. It is a bill (and the truth may as well be told in the Senate of the United States) which proceeds upon free trade principles, except as to such articles as it has been necessary to levy protective duties upon to get the votes of the Democratic Senators to pass the bill.... No such marvel has ever been seen under the sun as all the Democratic Senators, with the possible exception of the Senator from Texas (Mr. Mills), giving way to this demand of the sugar trust. How this chamber has rung with the denunciations of the sugar trust! How the ears of waiting and listening multitudes in Democratic political meetings have been vexed with reiterated denunciations of this sugar trust! And here every Democratic Senator, with one exception, is ready to vote for a prohibitive duty upon refined sugar." Twenty years of tariff agitation and tinkering had thus ended in general dissatisfaction with the promises and performances of both parties. The Republicans had advanced to a position of high protection based principally upon the demands of manufacturing interests themselves, modified by such protests on the part of consumers as became vocal and effective in politics. The Democrats had been driven, under Mr. Cleveland's leadership, to what seemed to be a disposition to reduce the tariff to something approaching a revenue basis, but when it came to an actual performance, their practical views, as manifested in the Wilson-Gorman act, were not far behind those of the opposing party. Representatives of both parties talked as if the issue was a contest between tariff-for-revenue and protection, but in fact it was not. The question was really, "which of the several regions shall receive the most protection?" Of attempts to get the tariff upon a "scientific basis," striking a balance among all the interests of the country, there was none. Ten years of political warfare over free silver and imperialism were to elapse before there could be a renewed examination of protection as a system. _The Civil Service Law of 1883_