t it ought to be reformed by its
friends rather than by its enemies. On the other hand, it was the
Republicans also who enacted the McKinley tariff bill of 1890, which
carried protection to its highest point up to that time.

The Democrats on their part were not all confirmed free traders or even
advocates of tariff for revenue only. In Cleveland's first
administration they did attack the protective system in the House, where
they had a majority, and in this they were vigorously supported by the
President. The assault, however, proved to be a futile gesture for it
was blocked by the Republicans in the Senate. When, after the sweeping
victory of 1892, the Democrats in the House again attempted to bring
down the tariff by the Wilson bill of 1894, they were checkmated by
their own party colleagues in the upper chamber. In the end they were
driven into a compromise that looked more like a McKinley than a Calhoun
tariff. The Republicans taunted them with being "babes in the woods."
President Cleveland was so dissatisfied with the bill that he refused to
sign it, allowing it to become a law, on the lapse of ten days, without
his approval.

=The Income Tax of 1894.=--The advocates of tariff reduction usually
associated with their proposal a tax on incomes. The argument which
they advanced in support of their program was simple. Most of the
industries, they said, are in the East and the protective tariff which
taxes consumers for the benefit of manufacturers is, in effect, a
tribute laid upon the rest of the country. As an offset they offered a
tax on large incomes; this owing to the heavy concentration of rich
people in the East, would fall mainly upon the beneficiaries of
protection. "We propose," said one of them, "to place a part of the
burden upon the accumulated wealth of the country instead of placing it
all upon the consumption of the people." In this spirit the sponsors of
the Wilson tariff bill laid a tax upon all incomes of $4000 a year or
more.

In taking this step, the Democrats encountered opposition in their own
party. Senator Hill, of New York, turned fiercely upon them, exclaiming:
"The professors with their books, the socialists with their schemes, the
anarchists with their bombs are all instructing the people in the ...
principles of taxation." Even the Eastern Republicans were hardly as
savage in their denunciation of the tax. But all this labor was wasted.
The next year the Supreme Court of the United St