There had been various other plans offered. Mr. Aldrich would apply the surplus to the purchase of United States bonds, or as a prepayment of interest on the National debt. One Congressman wanted it applied in bounties to wheatgrowers, another wished it loaned, another would devote it to building the Ead’s ship railway, several proposed using it in elaborate educational schemes. The general consent that the best way to get rid of it was to spend it, of course made Congress reckless in appropriations, particularly of pensions. They jumped from $87,500,000 to about $107,000,000 in Harrison’s first year, and in his fourth year, they had risen to $159,000,000. But spending it was not enough. The taxes must come down some $60,000,000 a year and the Republican suggestion had been, “cut down the internal revenue.” The Republican platform declared, “We favor the entire repeal of internal taxes rather than the surrender of any part of our protective system.” Mr. Allison and his committee considered many suggestions for the repeal of all internal revenue taxes but stopped after taking them off tobacco. Mr. McKinley announced that he had not been compelled to abolish the internal revenue though he was ready to do so if it was necessary to save the protective system. He estimated that the taxes on tobacco and alcohol used in the arts, which his bill did abolish, would amount to $10,000,000. The other $50,000,000 of reductions he proposed to meet in two ways. The first was by so increasing duties that importations would fall off, _i.e._ Mr. McKinley accepted the principle of Mr. Kelley and Mr. Aldrich that the way to reduce revenue from customs is to make foreign goods which might compete with domestic products too dear to buy. When the Democrats attacked his increase with the assertion that he would increase taxation and so revenue, he answered: “That statement is entirely misleading. It can only be accepted upon the assumption that the importation of the present year under this bill, if it becomes a law, will be equal to the importations of like articles under the existing law; and there is not a member of the Committee of Ways and Means, there is not a member of the minority of that Committee, there is not a member of the House on either side, who does not know that the very instant that you have increased the duties to a fair protective point, putting them above the highest revenue point, that very instant you diminish importations and to that extent diminish the revenue.”