This schedule was reported to the Senate on March 20, and soon after that the wool-growers and wool manufacturers learned of the Democratic insurgent movement for higher duties led by Gorman and Brice. “As soon as it became known that all the schedules were being written up to or towards protective rates,” one of their leading historians wrote afterwards in the Bulletin of the Association, “the woollen manufacturers began to gather in Washington with a view to discovering what could be done to save their own industry from destruction. The first efforts to this end were directed towards securing compound duties. Many variations in the compound rates originally suggested were made, finally resulting in a schedule in which all manufacturers acquiesced. “The compound schedule was thrown out of court almost immediately, coupled with the information that under no circumstances would the suggestion of compound duties on woollen goods be considered. If at this juncture the woollen manufacturers had been so fortunate as to possess among the Democratic Senators a single friend, so earnestly and honestly their friend as to do for them what certain Senators did for certain other industries (notably several branches of the iron and steel industry), this compound schedule could have been forced into the bill, as other specific duties were forced into it everywhere else, as the condition precedent to its passage. But they had no such friend, none at least who was willing to go as far as other Senators went for other industries. Thus it happens that the wool schedule is almost the only one in the Senate bill which was not dictated by some one powerful enough to make its terms fairly satisfactory to the industries concerned.” The Wilson Bill was returned to the House Committee with 634 amendments attached. The Committee refused to accept the amendments and a conference was arranged. Nothing came of this. The Senate conferrees held to the amendments, the House conferrees to disagreement. In reporting the disagreement to the House, Mr. Wilson read a letter from President Cleveland protesting against the bill. It voiced his pain and disgust at the outcome of the long fight he had led and counselled resistance to the miserable compromises which filled the bill: “My public life has been so closely related to the subject” (tariff reform), Mr. Cleveland wrote, “I have so longed for its accomplishment, and I have so often promised its realization to my fellow-countrymen as a result of their trust and confidence in the Democratic party, that I hope no excuse is necessary for my earnest appeal to you that in this crisis you strenuously insist upon party honesty and good faith and a sturdy adherence to Democratic principles. “I believe these are absolutely necessary conditions to the continuation of Democratic existence.