These unjust and unscientific duties had not been laid without protest. Men like Morrill, Garfield, Fessenden, Allison, Kasson, Raymond, and Sumner had warned against the outbreak. “It smells of monopoly,” they said again and again, and yet most of them when it came to the test voted with their party. Many of the ablest Republican newspapers, especially those in the West, harangued incessantly against the unfairness of the legislation. But remonstrance, even an attempt at discussion, only aroused the angry cry of “free-trader” from the dominant faction in Congress. “It has become impossible,” said Mr. Wells, in his report of December, 1869, for one “to suggest any reduction or modification whatever looking to the abatement of prices artificially maintained in the interest of special industries without being immoderately assailed with accusations of corrupt and unpatriotic motives.” The tariff legislation was but a part of the deplorable and general attempt which followed the war to make Congress do for the individual what it was his business to do for himself. Men seemed to believe that their futures depended on legislation—to have forgotten or never realized that legislation can do nothing more than distribute wealth—it cannot produce it, and that the only way you can get money to legislate into the pocket of one individual is by taking it out of the pocket of another. Washington had come to be filled with as fine a band of plunderers as ever besieged a National Congress: tax swindlers, smugglers, speculators in land grants, railroad lobbyists, agents of ship companies, mingled with the representatives of industries seeking protection, until it seemed as if Congress was little more than a Relief Bureau. At one time in 1869 there were 41 railroads or would-be railroads seeking aid in the House, and 37 in the Senate. What was to be the effect of this outbreak of protectionism? Many sober people asked themselves the question in dismay. But at the moment everybody was looking to Grant. The new President would certainly help the situation—bring back Congress and the party to candid discussion, institute economies, clear Washington of the self-seekers. CHAPTER III THE WAR TARIFFS CONTINUED Whatever hope moderate protectionists in Congress may have had that the new President would be influenced by their arguments in favor of tariff reform, was soon scattered. General Grant was of uncertain political antecedents. It is doubtful if he ever had any particular interest in the tariff question, and it is certain that he did not at that moment consider it a question for his administration to meddle with. In his first message he advised postponement of revision and against the renewal of the reciprocity treaty between the British Provinces and the United States. The one financial duty which he saw at his inauguration was the resumption of specie payment, and on that his voice was firm.