Nor was it the Democrats alone who raided the Wilson Bill. The revolt of Senators Gorman and Brice was an invitation to the Republicans to see what they could do for their constituents. When the news of what was going on spread through the country, Washington rapidly filled up with the agents and counsel of the protected industries, and under the leadership of Senator Quay a campaign of obstruction was carried on. Unless you give us what we ask, you shall have no bill at all, said Senator Quay; I will talk it to death. He began to execute his threat on April 14, and ended on June 16. Day after day, the _Congressional Record_ states laconically, “Senator Quay resumed the floor in continuance of the speech begun on the 14th of April,” and occasionally it adds, “speech will be printed when finished.” Senator Quay occupied twelve days of the period in his filibustering. He ceased because he had assurance that the duties he sought would be granted. His speech covers some 235 pages of the _Congressional Record_, an exhibit of legislation by violence which happily has few parallels in our history. James M. Swank, the manager of the Iron and Steel Association, says that Senator Quay secured higher rates of duties in “hundreds” of cases by his filibuster. He and Senator Aldrich seem to have turned their advantage mainly to saving their own chief industries,—iron and steel and cotton,—for both schedules were written by the manufacturers. The chief industry which did not get about what it wanted was wool. The House had provided for free wool and a 35 per cent duty on all manufactured goods. This was 5 per cent less than Mr. Mills had proposed to put on woollens in 1888. Of course the Republicans prophesied the most terrible disasters from this change. The industry had been sharing in the general depression of the country, that is, the McKinley Bill had not been able to make it prosperous. The National Association of Wool Manufacturers, confronted by this fact, pleaded that the bill be given a longer test. They declared that there was a “universal agreement between manufacturers” that the “tariff was now scientifically adjusted.” Nobody was going to suffer from the rates, they said, and in time they would insure permanent prosperity. The Association, of course, overlooked the fact that the rates they were then enjoying had, with only slight decreases in 1883, been in force since 1867, and that they had not prevented periodical depressions. They overlooked the fact, too, that, far from being united, as they declared, a very large body of the ablest woollen manufacturers in the country were at that moment petitioning for free wool and advising lower duties on their own products. All of this had little effect on the Democrats. The schedule went to the Senate as it had been prepared by Mr. Wilson’s committee; and when the sub-committee took hold of it, the duty on woollens was made 30 per cent instead of 35 per cent.