And there was a general feeling among those who had made it, and in the Administration itself, that as Mr. Aldrich told Mr. North, duties were too high and would have to come down. What would have happened if the public mind had continued to be occupied with the tariff as it had in 1890 and in 1894, it is difficult to say. It is not probable that there would have been any such revolt as the McKinley Bill caused. The disillusion the country had suffered over the ability of the Democrats to carry out consistent reforms was too keen. Moreover, what industry wanted and needed more than anything else was to be let alone; even the most irreconcilable of tariff-for-revenue only men could have hardly counselled another revision at this juncture. The Dingley Bill, bad as it was, did not stir the popular mind. Silver occupied it, and silver was soon displaced by the most absorbing interest which a country can have—a war—and the war was followed by the question of imperialism, and imperialism was not settled before the country had entered on a period of such magnificent and bewildering prosperity as it had never before dreamed. The heavy decline in prices which had begun in 1891 reached its lowest point for raw materials at the end of 1896, for manufactured goods in 1897. It was not until 1904 that the prices which manufacturers had received in 1890 were reëstablished, but after they were once reached, they soared rapidly far beyond. As for raw materials, they regained the ground they had lost much more quickly.