him. Indeed, they so sent him word. Mr. Crisp was elected, and he appointed Mr. Springer chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. To Colonel Mills he offered the second place on the Committee; this Mills refused, “Having been a member of the committee of the Ways and Means for ten years, and chairman in the fiftieth Congress,” he wrote Mr. Springer, “the reasons which have in your judgment rendered my appointment as chairman unwise would disqualify me for service on any other part of that Committee, and it would not be sincere to say that it would be agreeable to accept your tender. “I leave to you, without suggestion from me, to make such other arrangements as you, in the discharge of official duty, may determine.” There was no possibility of any legislation passing beyond the House in that session of Congress. A Republican Senate and President stood in the way, but agitation for political and educational purposes was possible and it was carried on. Fully 150 petitions were presented the first session of the new Congress, the 52d, December, 1891 to August, 1892, asking for the repeal of the whole or some part of the McKinley Bill. More than 100 bills were introduced, providing for its repeal or amendment. The Democrats undertook only the reform of especially obnoxious duties. Five bills were brought in: (1) a bill to place wool on the free list and to reduce the duty on woollen goods; (2) a bill to admit free of duty bagging for cotton, machinery for manufacturing bagging, cotton-ties and cotton-gins; (3) a bill to place binding twine on the free list; (4) a bill to reduce and ultimately to abolish the duty on tin and terne plates; and (5) to reduced the duty on lead ores. These bills were all passed by the House after thorough discussion; as good material as the party could have for the presidential campaign which was on the country before the “pop-gun” bills, as the Republicans called them, were out of the way. In the face of an almost certain victory in the impending election, serious Democrats began to ask themselves what, after all, should they do? What did they mean by tariff reform? To the majority there is no doubt that it meant simply a combination of tariff for revenue and of moderate protection of those industries already established, which it was believed could not yet compete with foreign goods. They professed to believe in free raw material—and did unless the raw material happened to be a leading product of their constituents. They were not generally in favor of drastic cutting, but preferred it to gradual.