the general committees.
One was a bill to authorize the issuance of interest-bearing securities
of the United States at such times and in such sums as the Executive
might determine. The other was a general tariff bill that proposed
increases upon the then existing Wilson-Gorman bill. The first would
put into the hands of the President a power that was not enjoyed by
any ruler in Christendom; the second would add to the unfair and
discriminatory tariff rates then in force, by making ad valorem
increases in them. Many new members of Congress had been elected on
the two issues thus created: the arbitrary increase of the bonded
indebtedness by President Cleveland to maintain a gold reserve; and the
unjust benefits afforded those industries that were least in need of
aid, by duties increased in exact proportion to the strength of the
industrial combination that was to be protected.

The presentation of the two bills by the Committee on Rules--with
a coacher to each proposing to prevent amendment and limit
discussion--raised a revolt in the House. A caucus of the insurgent
Republican members was held at the Ebbitt Hotel, and I was elected
temporary chairman. We appointed a committee to demand from Speaker Reed
a division of the questions and time for opposition to be heard. We had
seventy-five insurgents when our committee waited on. Reed; and most
of us were new men, elected to oppose such measures as these bills
advocated. He received us with sarcasm, put us off with a promise to
consider our demands, and then set his lieutenants at work among
us. Under the threat of the Speaker's displeasure if we continued to
"insurge" and the promise of his favor if we "got into line," forty-one
(I think) of our seventy-five deserted us. We were gloriously beaten in
the House on both measures.

Some of the older Republican members of the House came to ask me how
I had been "misled"; and they received with the raised eyebrow and
the silent shrug my explanation that I had been merely following my
convictions and living up to the promises I had made my constituents.
I had supposed that I was upholding an orthodox Republican doctrine
in helping to defend the country from exploitation by the financial
interests, in the matter of the bond issue, and from the greed of the
business interests in the attempt to increase horizontally the tariff
rates.

I do not need, in this day of tariff reform agitation, to argue the
injustice of the latter