e probably
available."

It is, of course, a doctrine of present-day Republicanism that the will
of the majority must rule within the party. An insurgent is therefore
an apostate. The decision of the caucus is the infallible declaration of
the creed. In setting myself up as a judge of what it was right for me
to do, as the sworn representative of the people who had elected me, I
was offending against party orthodoxy, as that orthodoxy was then, and
is now, enforced in Washington.

I was given an opportunity to return to conformity. I was sent a
written invitation to attend the caucus of Republican Senators after the
assembling of Congress; and, with the other "insurgents," I ignored
the invitation. It was finally decided by the party leaders to let the
tariff bill rest until after the inauguration of the President-elect,
William McKinley, with the understanding that he would call a special
session to consider it; and, in the interval, the Republican machine,
under Mark Hanna, was set to work to produce a Republican majority in
the Senate.

Hanna was elected Senator, at this time, to succeed John Sherman, who
had been removed to the office of Secretary of State, in order to make
a seat for Hanna. The Republican majority was produced. (Senator Dubois
had been defeated). And when the special session was called, in the
spring of 1897, my vote was no longer so urgently needed. I was invited
to a Republican caucus, but I was unwilling to return to political
affiliations which I might have to renounce again; for I saw the power
of the business interests in dictating the policy of the party and I did
not propose to bow to that dictation.

When the tariff bill came before the Senate, I could not in conscience
support it. The beneficiaries of the bill seemed to be dictating their
own schedules, and this was notably the case with the sugar trust, which
had obtained a differential between raw and refined sugar several times
greater than the entire cost of refining. I denounced the injustice of
the sugar schedule particularly. A Mr. Oxnard came to remonstrate with
me on behalf of the beet sugar industry of the West. "You know," he
said, "what a hard time we're having with our sugar companies. Unless
this schedule's adopted I greatly fear for our future."

I replied that I was not opposing any protection of the struggling
industries of the country, or of the sugar growers, but I was set
against the extortionate differential that