It has cut down the sales of American manufacture at home and abroad, and depleted the returns of American agriculture—an industry followed by half our people. It costs the people five times more than it produces to the treasury, obstructs the processes of production, and wastes the fruit of labor. It promotes fraud, fosters smuggling, enriches dishonest officials, and bankrupts honest merchants. We demand that all custom-house taxation shall be only for revenue. It is evident from what we have seen of the record of the Republican tariff-reformers that no great number of them would follow the Democrats in any such radical program as Mr. Watterson’s. Wells and Brinkerhoff, in fact, were about the only prominent tariff leaders of 1872 who turned to the Democrats in 1876. Carl Schurz, Murat Halstead, and Horace White all stayed with the party. But there was an even more important question than what the Republicans would do. It was what the Democrats themselves would do. Were they ready as a party to stand by “tariff for revenue only”? The question of Mr. Hayes’s election was no sooner settled than it became evident that they were not. The Democrats in the House divided completely on the question, the wing following the party platform being led by Colonel W. R. Morrison of Illinois and Roger Q. Mills of Texas—the protectionist wing being led by Samuel J. Randall of Pennsylvania. Mr. Randall was an avowed protectionist-Democrat, and a man who, his colleagues had learned, usually was able to get his way. Randall had first entered Congress in 1862. He was a quiet, persistent, hard-working person who attracted little attention for several years; then the Republicans, sure of their majority and wishing to expedite business, undertook to adopt rules which would prevent obstruction. The quiet Mr. Randall set himself against the attempt. He led the small Democratic minority with a skill so unusual that more than once he blocked the Republicans’ way until it was too late to pass the measure. His endurance seemed unlimited. From one session lasting 46 hours and 25 minutes where Randall had forced the roll to be called seventy-five times, he came out as fresh as he went in. At another time in the fight over the “Force Bill” he was on the floor for seventy-two consecutive hours. After his party secured the House in 1874, Randall was put at the head of the Committee on Appropriations, where he cut down appropriations some $30,000,000. He came to the Speaker’s chair in time to preside through one of the most critical episodes in the history of Congress—the dispute over the Tilden-Hayes election. His conduct at this time was eminently cool, wise, and fair, and greatly strengthened his position in the country. It was not alone his parliamentary skill which won him followers. His presence counted for much. Randall was one of the handsomest men of his day—with a face chiselled like an old Roman’s and