The Republicans won the election, though not overwhelmingly. As a matter of fact, Grover Cleveland had a majority of 100,000 of the popular vote. It was not the tariff which gave them the victory. Their victory would have been a defeat if it had not been for the Democratic split which gave them New York, and the return to their fold of a certain Mugwump Republican element which had revolted in 1884 and now came back because dissatisfied with Mr. Cleveland’s civil service work. CHAPTER VIII THE McKINLEY BILL There has not been a presidential election in our time when the tariff positions of the two great parties were as perfectly defined as in 1888. Each had a bill practically complete to offer the country. The Republicans had elected a president and the majority of the House of Representatives. It was natural that they should now demand that their bill be at once adopted. Although the Allison Bill had been practically finished before the election, it had not been sent to the House, because it was claimed that the Democrats were malicious enough and Mr. Cleveland clever enough to pass it in order to have a completed reform to go to the country on. The Senate bill being what we have seen, and Mr. Carlisle and Mr. Mills being the leaders of the House, such action was of course unthinkable, but it was an excuse as good as another for not sending in the bill, and no doubt was accepted by the devout. As soon as Congress met in December the Allison Bill was taken up, again compared with the Mills Bill, and finally on January 22 passed as an amendment to the latter. In sending the bill over to the House the Senate suggested that it be referred to a Conference Committee of the two Houses. This was to avoid the objection the Democrats were sure to raise, that the Allison Bill was a violation of the Constitutional provision that all revenue measures must originate with the House. Mr. Reed and Mr. McKinley both urged the Conference. To Mr. Reed it was an absurdity that the rules in force could prevent prompt action. At least if the Democrats did refuse to allow a conference on the bill, he wanted to make sure that the country understood that it was not the Republicans who were delaying action in the all-important matter of reducing the revenue; it was the Democrats, the very gentlemen who had so long and so loudly urged the necessity of action!