When this bill was first brought forward, being introduced by Mr. Frye, of Maine, in the Senate, and by Mr. Dingley, in the House of Representatives, the foreign steamship owners or their agents in this country at once became greatly alarmed. They had not offered a very vigorous resistance to the passage of the Ocean Mail Pay Act of 1891, because their knowledge of the business and their keen sense of the situation taught them that there was not much danger to their interests in that bill. They made a show of opposing it, of course, but they spent very little money or time and made no really determined effort to beat it. In fact, the foreign steamship owners and the managers of the foreign lines which were doing the ocean-carrying trade of the United States realized before that bill became a law what it took our people two or three years to find out. But when the tonnage bounty bill was brought forward, with the general applicability of its provisions to all kinds of vessels engaged in the foreign carrying trade, and proposing, as it did, a rate of bounty which would have gone far toward equalizing the difference in cost of seafaring labor and subsistence as between American and foreign ships, the owners and managers of the steamship lines[1] and tramps that were carrying the commerce of the United States determined that it must be beaten at all hazards and at any cost. This struggle began in 1894. The original tonnage bill passed the Senate, but was smothered in the House. The owners and managers of the foreign steamship lines could not control the Senate, but they appeared able to affect the action of the House of Representatives negatively, at least, if not positively. Footnote 1: These managers of foreign lines proceeded systematically. Whatever may have been the activity of their competition for the carrying trade of the United States, they were unanimous in their determination to prevent the growth of an American merchant marine. Acting under the guise of a pretended business combine, which, for convenience, they termed “The North Atlantic Traffic Association,” they raised funds, hired lobbyists,—among whom appeared ex-officials of positions as high as the Cabinet,—and by every possible means known to modern ingenuity thwarted every effort of those favoring American interests, both in and out of Congress. This combination has no reason for existence except that of organized and systematic lobbying against American interests in the corridors and committee rooms of the American Congress.