In the debate on the Schenck Bill Mr. Kelley’s defence of the high tariffs was impassioned and angry. Monopoly, what did he care for monopoly, he cried, when Mr. Allison called his attention to the fact that a certain iron manufacturer whose scale of wages Kelley was praising, had, with the only three other of his kind in the country, agreed upon a list of prices made by adding to the price abroad the duty and a profit on the cost at home. “I do not care what they agreed to do if they are thereby enabling workingmen to keep their children at school, well-fed and comfortably clad, to maintain their seats in church and to lay something up for old age and a rainy day.” Kelley’s refusal to consider any argument for lowering duties, particularly on iron, led to a charge that he was in the pay of the iron manufacturers. No proof of this accusation was ever offered. The New York _Nation_, which repeated it in 1872, made the _amende honorable_ soon after, saying that Mr. Kelley and his friends had convinced them that he had no interest which would justify this charge. Kelley’s case was different from that of Thaddeus Stevens, who did own an iron foundry. The cause of the charge was due no doubt to Kelley’s unwillingness to admit that there could be evils in applying his favorite doctrine. For corruption _outside_ of the tariff he had a just indignation—as for the whiskey frauds. He looked with horror on Simon Cameron; and in 1872, when office-seeking was causing great scandal, he refused to accept renomination to Congress, except on condition that hereafter he should not be regarded as a “patronage broker.” His defeat was generally prophesied, but he kept his word and won. At the other end of the scale from Kelley was Samuel Sullivan Cox, by far the most eloquent, witty, and well-informed debater the Democrats had. Cox was an uncompromising free-trader, and one of the most interesting figures in Congress. He was still a young man, forty-four at this time, but an experienced one. A graduate of Brown, he had first taken part in public life as the editor of the _Statesman_ of Columbus, Ohio. Here at the very start he earned his sobriquet of “Sunset Cox” by an editorial, which went all over the country; “A Great Old Sunset,” it was called. It opened, “What a stormful sunset was that of last night! How glorious the storm, and how splendid the setting of the sun.”