This, in substance, was the condition of things when it came time for Mr. Cleveland to send in his second message. His first year in office had certainly given him large opportunity to study the tariff question. It had not been wasted. His notions had evidently been enlarged and intensified and in his message he urged at length upon Congress the “pressing importance” of revision. He made a strong argument against the system which had produced the surplus he was laboring with and at the same time caused “abnormal and exceptional business profits,” “without corresponding benefit to the people at large,” and it ended with a plain warning to Congress that nothing could be accomplished “unless the subject was approached in a patriotic spirit of devotion to the interests of the entire country and with a willingness to yield something to the public good.” This message is particularly interesting in comparison with the famous one of a year later. Indeed, it contains nearly all the points elaborated there. But it fell on deaf ears. Mr. Morrison proved this when, a few days later, he tried again to get his second bill reported, and was defeated. Not only did Congress refuse to consider Mr. Morrison’s bill, it adjourned in March, 1887, without any action of any kind in regard to revenue. And while the members of Congress sullenly refused to consider the needs of the country lest in so doing they might sacrifice party advantage, Mr. Cleveland and his cabinet were spending anxious days trying to find means to unclog the treasury and avert panic. In the first six months after the message of December, 1886, nearly $80,000,000 were applied to taking up 3 per cent bonds. Financial uneasiness continuing, some eighteen to nineteen millions more were spent on the same bonds, and twenty-seven and one-half millions in taking up bonds not yet due and in anticipating interest. Even after this Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Fairchild, his Secretary of the Treasury, did not feel at all certain that trouble would not return, and as the hot weather came on and the cabinet members prepared to leave for their summer homes, the President arranged that they keep him informed of all their movements. He wanted to be able to reach them, he told them, for he had made up his mind that if there was a recurrence of trouble he would call an extra session of Congress and lay matters before the members in such a way that they would be forced to act.