the movement,
with Henry M. Whitney and Eugene N. Foss as its most persistent
advocates. Detroit, Chicago, St. Paul, and other border cities were also
active.

Official action soon followed this unofficial campaign. Curiously
enough, it came as an unexpected by-product of a further experiment
in protection, the Payne-Aldrich tariff. For the first time in the
experience of the United States this tariff incorporated the principle
of minimum and maximum schedules. The maximum rates, fixed at
twenty-five per cent ad valorem above the normal or minimum rates, were
to be enforced upon the goods of any country which had not, before March
10, 1910, satisfied the President that it did not discriminate against
the products of the United States. One by one the various nations
demonstrated this to President Taft's satisfaction or with wry faces
made the readjustments necessary. At last Canada alone remained. The
United States conceded that the preference to the United Kingdom did
not constitute discrimination, but it insisted that it should enjoy
the special rates recently extended to France by treaty. In Canada this
demand was received with indignation. Its tariff rates were much lower
than those which the United States imposed, and its purchases in that
country were twice as great as its sales. The demand was based on a
sudden and complete reversal of the traditional American interpretation
of the most favored nation policy. The President admitted the force of
Canada's contentions, but the law left him no option. Fortunately it did
leave him free to decide as to the adequacy of any concessions, and thus
agreement was made possible at the eleventh hour. At the President's
suggestion a conference at Albany was arranged, and on the 30th of
March a bargain was struck. Canada conceded to the United States its
intermediate tariff rates on thirteen minor schedules--chinaware, nuts,
prunes, and whatnot. These were accepted as equivalent to the special
terms given France, and Canada was certified as being entitled to
minimum rates. The United States had saved its face. Then to complete
the comedy, Canada immediately granted the same concessions to all other
countries, that is, made the new rates part of the general tariff.
The United States ended where it began, in receipt of no special
concessions. The motions required had been gone through; phantom
reductions had been made to meet a phantom discrimination.

This was only the beginning