The insistent demands of the wool men, for years, had been such, that even good Mr. Morrill had grown tired of them. “Their evils somehow never disappear,” he said, querulously, when he presented his bill in ’66, and he went on then to say that never since he had been in Congress had so large a number of petitions for help been received as had been coming from the wool interests East and West. The wool men, as a matter of fact, were organized then as probably no interest in the country had ever been before. The chief organization was the National Association of Wool Manufacturers, having at its head as able a lobbyist and promoter as the country has ever produced—this was John L. Hayes—a New Englander—a graduate of Dartmouth and of the Harvard Law School, a man of wide and varied experience. He had been counsel for Canada when the reciprocity treaty of 1854 was framed. He had founded iron works in Maine and promoted a railroad in Mexico. He had been in politics. He had held office in Washington. He was a natural scientist of no mean order—a man versatile, knowing, engaging, and energetic. Mr. Hayes took charge of the interests of the wool manufactures in 1865, and he carried on a splendid campaign for higher tariffs. The only hitch in it had been the necessity of combining with the wool-growers. The decline in the price of wool after the war had lead the latter to conceive the idea that if all foreign wool could be shut out of the country, the domestic grower would be able to monopolize the market—at his own price. To accomplish this they had organized to fight for a duty which they meant should be prohibitive. The disadvantage at which the manufacturer would find himself, should such a measure pass, was obvious, but to fight for free wool was to antagonize a group of unusual political power. Ohio was the chief centre of this group, but it could count on the support of New York, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. Mr. Hayes realized that if the wool manufacturers should succeed in keeping their raw material free, the wool-growers in retaliation might force low duties on woollens. It seemed to him and to the association he directed better policy to work with rather than against their opponents, and largely through his influence the two conflicting interests were brought together at a convention held in Syracuse, New York, early in 1866. There was an attempt to convince the sheep men that free raw wool would benefit them more than any tariff, but they refused the argument. They must have real protection. The two interests succeeded finally in working out an agreement which satisfied each. The basis of this agreement was, as afterwards stated by Commissioner Wells, “that the duty on raw or unwashed wools and hair, other than wools adapted for carpets, should be fixed at rates varying from ten to twelve cents per pound, and from ten to eleven per cent ad valorem. In order, then, to compensate the