It was not until a year after its election that the new House got a chance at the tariff. In his first message to Congress President Harrison had recommended a revision of both the schedules and the administrative features of the tariff. He feared, he said, that some disturbance of business might result from the consideration of the subject, but he was certain that this would be reduced to the minimum by “the assurance which the country already enjoys that any necessary changes will be so made as not to impair the just and reasonable protection of our home industries.” The new organization of the House and of the Ways and Means Committee was admirably adapted to put through a bill satisfactory to the dominant faction of the party—also a bill in which the manufacturer would get what he asked. The chairman of the Committee was no longer William Kelley. Mr. Kelley was in his last illness and the man who for nearly six years had been his chief lieutenant had taken his place. This was William McKinley of Ohio. In 1883, it will be remembered, Mr. Kelley thought he had found his successor in William D. Haskell of Kansas. Mr. Haskell had shown unusual ability both as a parliamentarian and a debater, but the work of the session had been too much for him. He did not recuperate from the strain through the summer, and twelve days after Congress opened in December, he died in Washington. Kelley wept like a child when he heard of Haskell’s death. “Why could not I have gone in his place,” he said; “my work is nearly done, his was only begun.” But Kelley was not alone. Close to Haskell throughout the winter of 1882–1883 had been another young protectionist, one in whom Kelley had great and affectionate confidence. This was William McKinley. Indeed, it had been uncertain at the beginning of the movement for tariff reform in 1880, whether Haskell or McKinley would become Kelley’s first lieutenant. The former had won by his superior energy and superior intellect and it is altogether probable that he would have kept his place if he had lived. At his death McKinley naturally succeeded him. At that time he was about forty-five years old. He had been in Congress since 1876, and from the first the tariff had been his chief interest. His amiability, his earnestness, his almost devout attitude towards the dogma of protection, endeared him greatly to Kelley, and by the time the debate on the Mills Bill came on he was firmly in place. His speeches in that debate and the campaign which followed were among the most popular made. McKinley had an advantage at that time which few of his colleagues enjoyed,—that of believing with childlike faith that all he claimed for protection was true. Moreover, he had no tariff reform record behind him as the best of them had; no speech like Allison’s of March, 1870, could be thrown up at him. Moreover, McKinley was one of those amiable persons who likes to agree with everybody, and even when President, rarely sent