But Judge Lawrence and his Association, as had been proved in 1883 and again in 1890, held moderate protection as little better than free trade. They wished to shut out all foreign wool. They refused to modify their demands now, and when both House and Senate Committees put the rates down, they turned on their representatives with a demand that their wants be satisfied. That they could rally a group strong enough to defeat the bill was plain. The Western silver Senators were also wool Senators. They took no interest in the bill as a party measure; they would gladly defeat it if it did not give them what they wanted. Moreover, the demand for a duty on wool was supported by a group of Eastern woollen manufacturers who had always exercised great political power. This was the group known as the National Association of Wool Manufacturers. Although they deplored Judge Lawrence’s extreme demands, they stood for a duty on wool. In the judgment of this Association, they must either support the wool duty or be prepared to abandon their own protection; accordingly they now resolved that “an impartial application of the principle of protection is essential to a complete and uniform development of the industrial resources of the nation,” and they “earnestly” seconded the appeal for a duty on wool. This resolution they sent to the wool-growers, who naturally had always been suspicious of the support of men willing to work for a law which made their own materials dearer, with a private note, assuring them that “a spirit of sympathy and fellowship” towards all wool-growers animated the Association. That his spirit was far from animating all in the business, the loud protests against taxing wool which came from many leading but non-political woollen manufacturers at this time is evidence. So strong was the vote the wool interest mustered that the Senate finally yielded in its fight for the lower duty. Eight and 9 cents a pound on clothing and combing wool were what it had been struggling for; 10 and 11 cents were granted: but when the bill went into conference these rates were advanced to 11 and 12 cents, making the duties exactly what they were in the McKinley Bill. The duty on wool of the third class, that is, on carpet wool, was raised higher than in the bill of 1890, an entirely indefensible increase. We did not then and do not now raise carpet wool in this country. Our land is too valuable. But the Western growers of coarse wool had been told that carpet wool was being imported free for use in cloth-making, that it was “deplacing” American wool, and they had demanded that it should be taxed. It is probable that a small amount of carpet wool did and still does find its way into certain clothes, but it is a negligible amount, and to put a tax upon the raw material of an entire industry, making every yard of domestic carpet dearer for the sake of protecting the scared wool-growers of the West against a purely