ood reason for believing that free silver would have received a
majority in both houses of Congress; but it was not presented.

=The Sherman Silver Purchase Act and the Bond Sales.=--Republican
leaders, particularly from the East, stemmed the silver tide by a
diversion of forces. They passed the Sherman Act of 1890 providing for
large monthly purchases of silver and for the issue of notes redeemable
in gold or silver at the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury. In
a clause of superb ambiguity they announced that it was "the established
policy of the United States to maintain the two metals on a parity with
each other upon the present legal ratio or such other ratio as may be
provided by law." For a while silver was buoyed up. Then it turned once
more on its downward course. In the meantime the Treasury was in a sad
plight. To maintain the gold reserve, President Cleveland felt compelled
to sell government bonds; and to his dismay he found that as soon as the
gold was brought in at the front door of the Treasury, notes were
presented for redemption and the gold was quickly carried out at the
back door. Alarmed at the vicious circle thus created, he urged upon
Congress the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. For this he was
roundly condemned by many of his own followers who branded his conduct
as "treason to the party"; but the Republicans, especially from the
East, came to his rescue and in 1893 swept the troublesome sections of
the law from the statute book. The anger of the silver faction knew no
bounds, and the leaders made ready for the approaching presidential
campaign.

THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF AND TAXATION

=Fluctuation in Tariff Policy.=--As each of the old parties was divided
on the currency question, it is not surprising that there was some
confusion in their ranks over the tariff. Like the silver issue, the
tariff tended to align the manufacturing East against the agricultural
West and South rather than to cut directly between the two parties.
Still the Republicans on the whole stood firmly by the rates imposed
during the Civil War. If we except the reductions of 1872 which were
soon offset by increases, we may say that those rates were substantially
unchanged for nearly twenty years. When a revision was brought about,
however, it was initiated by Republican leaders. Seeing a huge surplus
of revenue in the Treasury in 1883, they anticipated popular clamor by
revising the tariff on the theory tha