Up to this time these allied interests had supported the Republican party. It was in power and it had granted the privileges they enjoyed, but they were quite willing to support a man of any political faith who agreed with them. Naturally their great desire was that both parties should agree to protection as the American system, that the question should practically be taken out of politics. This would result if Mr. Randall’s effort to protectionize the Democrats succeeded. Naturally, then, they were eager to do their utmost to support him in his contest with Mr. Carlisle. But to their surprise and unquestionably to the surprise of Mr. Randall, Mr. Carlisle was elected speaker by a large majority. The tariff question was to be opened again. The man whom Mr. Carlisle selected to open it was William R. Morrison of Illinois, who had worked shoulder to shoulder with him the winter before in obstructing the Kelley Bill. Mr. Morrison was an experienced man at tariff reform; indeed, the first Democratic tariff bill presented after the war originated with him. That was in 1875 and 1876, when the Democrats first obtained possession of the House. The speaker, Michael C. Kerr, had asked Colonel Morrison to take the chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee. Mr. Morrison had brought in a good and reasonable measure, one nearer in accord with sound tariff principles than those which he presented later, but even then the Randall faction of Protectionist-Democrats were too strong for him, and his bill had been speedily dropped. A little later Mr. Randall had succeeded Kerr as speaker and he had dropped Morrison from the Committee. He was not restored until 1879. But Mr. Morrison was too aggressively honest and outspoken ever to keep silence on a question which interested him. He had fought for reform in Congress, in caucus, in national conventions, everywhere he could get a hearing, and now that he had a chance to make a bill he went at it with great zest, and in March he had it ready—“a bill to reduce import duties and war-tariff taxes”—he called it. The bill was clever, for it really asked nothing more than what the Republicans themselves were already committed to. Thus he proposed a general 20 per cent reduction. The Republican Tariff Commission had advised from 20 to 25 per cent in 1882—Congress in 1883 had granted only a little over 4 per cent. So, declared Mr. Morrison, I am only asking what your own experts have advised. This 20 per cent reduction was to be applied horizontally to all duties on manufactured articles. Here again Mr. Morrison was following Republican precedent: their reduction in 1872 being a 10 per cent horizontal, and their increase in 1875 a restoration of the same. In order to forestall the objection that this reduction might bring certain duties back to the detested rates of 1857, Mr. Morrison put in the proviso that no duty should be lower than that provided by the Morrill tariff of 1861. That