_The interests of the cotton manufacturers of New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, reflected through their representatives in Congress, were sufficiently strong to defeat any attempt to change the cotton tariff, and had it been attempted it would have beaten the bill reported from either committee._ What made the cotton manufacturers so strong? Their alliance in tariff matters with the worsted manufacturers—nothing else. Side by side with worsted in New England and New York and Pennsylvania, in all the textile centres, is cotton. The worsted manufacturers use larger and larger quantities of cotton in their cheap goods. Worsted manufacturers are also frequently cotton manufacturers. The tariff interests of cotton and of worsted manufacturers are identical. Everywhere we find them supporting the same political combinations. Senator Aldrich has always been as liberal in supporting what the wool men wanted as he was in 1909 in carrying out Mr. Lippitt’s suggestions. So loyal is he to the wool schedule that in 1909, when the attack was made by his own party colleagues on its inequalities, he made the following extraordinary statement: “_There is no Senator sitting upon this side of the Chamber, there is no person who is acquainted with the tariffs of this or any other country, who does not know that an assault upon the wool and woollen schedule of this bill is an attack upon the very citadel of protection and the lines of defence for American industries and American labor. If the Senate destroys the relation in that schedule or destroys the schedule itself, you demoralize the whole protective system; and you destroy every line of defence which the people of this country have who believe in the protective policy._” Now what does this mean? We have seen that the “assault” on the wool schedule was merely the demand that its discriminations be adjusted: _there was no demand for lowering duties_; but Mr. Aldrich declared if this readjustment should be made, it would “demoralize the whole protective system”—destroy the “citadel” and the “lines of defence for American industries.” Can this mean anything at all but that it would break up the wool “bulwark,” the combination of politicians and favored wool-growers and worsted manufacturers fattening off the competing branch of the industry? It can mean nothing else. Destroy the combination which has kept the old wool schedule in vogue so long, and you destroy a chief financial support of many congressmen. Break down this combination in Congress, and what would happen to cotton? It has no such wide power as wool. It could not count on getting what it wanted quietly and unostentatiously as it has always done. Allied with wool, its case has always been easy. And it was a good alliance for wool, although not a vital one, for cotton is rich, and when it comes to funds to return high tariff Senators, it is generous.