Such was the temper of the House when the Senate bill reached it on February 20—a poor temper indeed for candid legislation. Nevertheless, the bill could probably have been passed promptly if Mr. Kelley had been willing. The Carlisle Democrats criticised it, but they declared it too good to obstruct. As for the majority of Republicans, they were in favor of it. But Mr. Kelley was not willing. His first business then was to block any attempt to get the bill off the Speaker’s table and pass it by a regular procedure; a thing not difficult to do, for Speaker Keifer was playing perfectly into his hands and could be depended upon not to recognize anybody whom Kelley and Haskell were unwilling should get a hearing. Indeed, the Democrats had been saying for days that nobody could catch the Speaker’s eye unless Kelley first gave the wink. In this matter of keeping back the bill so small a matter as a misplaced semicolon aided Kelley materially. In looking over the engrossed copy sent to the House from the Senate, Mr. Haskell had discovered one which considerably changed duties on iron. He would not consider a bill so “ragged, ill-considered, and half made,” he declared. The poor little semicolon held up the House and gave half the papers in the country a subject for editorials. The Senate clerk hastened over to correct the error. It was only a slip. He could easily remedy it, he urged. “No,” said Speaker Keifer sternly. He was not going to allow a Senate clerk to make a tariff bill for them. The bill had to be taken back to the Senate and corrected by proper procedure. While the semicolon and other small matters were taking up time the Republican leaders were closeted with the Committee on Rules, which they controlled, in an effort to find a way out of their dilemma. If they could get the bill into a conference of their own kind and revise it and then pass it, they would be satisfied. It all amounted, as a matter of fact, to finding a way to defeat a bill which the majority would accept and to make and pass one which the minority wanted. Now in anticipation of the difficulty in which they expected to be when the Senate bill reached them, Mr. Kasson had some days before this proposed a revision of the House rules which would allow a majority to take the Senate bill from the table to concur in, or to non-concur in, and send to a conference. If Mr. Kelley could have been sure of a majority for nonconcurrence he would have risked this procedure, but he found he could not. In caucus and out he canvassed the Republicans and always with the result that he feared a vote would result in concurrence. He was afraid of the Kasson rule.