It likes to have the tallest buildings in the world. New York alone contains more than twenty-five architectural eruptions of more than twenty stories each. There is an edifice now completed which is 909 feet in height. One is planned which will be 1000 feet tall, 16 feet taller than the Eiffel Tower. This new building will not be merely to gratify (or to shock) the eye like the Parisian monument of magnificence in architecture. "The Eiffel Tower," says the American, "is not a real sky-scraper, _gratte-ciel_; it is only a sky-tickler, _chatouille-ciel_; nothing more than a _jeu d'esprit_ which man has played with the law of gravitation. But our American tall building will be strictly for business, a serious affair, the office of a great life-insurance company." There is a single American factory which makes 1500 railway locomotives every year. There is a company for the manufacture of harvesting-machines in Chicago whose plant covers 140 acres, whose employees number 24,000, and whose products go all over the world. Undoubtedly it was the desire to promote industrial development that led to the adoption of the protective tariff as an American policy. The people wanted to do things, to do all sorts of things, and to do them on a large scale. They were not satisfied to be merely farmers, or miners, or fishermen, or sailors, or lumbermen. They wished to exercise their energy in all possible ways, and to secure their prosperity by learning how to do everything necessary for themselves. They began to lay duties upon goods manufactured in Europe in order to make a better market at home for goods manufactured in America. "Protection of infant industries" was the idea that guided them. There have been occasional intervals when the other idea, that of liberty for needy consumers to buy in the cheapest market, has prevailed, and tariffs have been reduced. But in general the effort has been not only to raise a large part of the national income by duties on imports, but also to enhance the profits of native industries by putting a handicap on foreign competition. There can be no question that the result has been to foster the weaker industries and make them strong, and actually to create some new fields for American energy to work in. For example, in 1891 there was not a pound of tin-plate made in the United States, and 1,000,000,000 pounds a year were imported. The McKinley tariff put on an import duty of 70 per cent. In 1901 only a little over 100,000,000 pounds of tin-plate were imported, and nearly 900,000,000 pounds were made in America. The same thing happened in the manufacture of watches. A duty of 25 per cent on the foreign article gave the native manufacturer a profit, encouraged the development of better machinery, and made the American watch tick busily around the world. Now (1908) the duty is 40 per cent _ad valorem_.