ssues are prominent: (1) taxation, (2) tariff reform, (3) the
surplus. The Democrats nominated Grover Cleveland and Allen G. Thurman,
and demanded frugality in public expenses, no more revenue than was
needed to pay the necessary cost of government, and a tariff for revenue
only. The Republicans nominated Benjamin Harrison and Levi P. Morton,
and demanded a tariff for protection, a reduction of the revenue by the
repeal of taxes on tobacco and on spirits used in the arts, and by the
admission free of duty of foreign-made articles the like of which are
not produced at home.

[Illustration: Benjamin Harrison]

The Prohibitionists, the Union Labor party, and the United Labor party
also placed candidates in the field. Harrison and Morton were elected,
and inaugurated March 4, 1889.

%548. The Republicans in Control.%--The Republican party not only
regained the presidency, but was once more in control of the House and
Senate. Thus free to carry out its pledges, it passed the McKinley
Tariff Act (1890); a new pension bill, which raised the number of
pensioners to 970,000, and the sum annually spent on pensions from
$106,000,000 to $150,000,000; and a new financial measure, known as

%549. The Sherman Act.%--You remember that the attempt to enact a law
for the free coinage of silver in 1878 led to the Bland-Allison Act, for
the purchase of bullion and the coinage of at least $2,000,000 worth of
silver each month. As this was not free coinage, the friends of silver
made a second attempt, in 1886, to secure the desired legislation. This
also failed. But in the summer of 1890, the silver men, having a
majority of the Senate, passed a free-coinage bill (June 17), which the
House rejected (June 25). A conference followed, and from this
conference came a bill which was quickly enacted into a law and called
the Sherman Act. It provided

1. That the Secretary of the Treasury should buy 4,500,000 ounces of
silver each month.

2. That he should pay for the bullion with paper money called treasury
notes.

3. That on demand of the holder the Secretary must redeem these notes in
gold or silver.

4. After July 1, 1891, the silver need not be coined, but might be
stored in the Treasury, and silver certificates issued.

%550. The Farmers' Alliance%.--This legislation, combined with an
agricultural depression and widespread discontent in the agricultural
states, caused the defeat of the Republicans in the elections of 1890.
The Dem