nd nobody deemed to be at the helm. According
to William R. Morrison, who certainly had been in a position to know,
President Cleveland had "up to this time taken no decided ground one way
or the other on the question of tariff." He had included the subject
in the long dissertation on the state of the Union, which ever since
Jefferson's time the President has been wont to send to Congress at
the opening of a session, but he had not singled it out as having
precedence. He now surprised the country, roused his party, and gave
fresh animation to national politics on December 6, 1887, by devoting
his third annual message wholly to the subject of taxation and
revenue. He pointed out that the treasury surplus was mounting up to
$140,000,000; that the redemption of bonds which had afforded a means
for disbursement of excess revenues had stopped because there were no
more bonds that the Government had a right to redeem; and that, hence,
the Treasury "idly holds money uselessly subtracted from the channels
of trade," a situation from which monetary derangement and business
distress would naturally ensue. He strongly urged that the "present
tariff laws, the vicious, inequitable and illogical source of
unnecessary taxation, ought to be at once revised and amended."
Cleveland gave a detailed analysis of the injurious effects which the
existing tariff had upon trade and industry, and went on to remark that
"progress toward a wise conclusion will not be improved by dwelling
upon the theories of protection and free trade. This savors too much of
bandying epithets. It is a condition which confronts us, not a theory."
The effect of the message was very marked both upon public opinion and
party activity. Mr. Morrison correctly summed up the party effect
in saying that "Mr. Mills, obtaining the substantial support of the
Administration, was enabled to press through the House a bill differing
in a very few essential measures from, and combining the general details
and purposes of, the several measures of which I have been the author,
and which had been voted against by many of those who contributed to the
success of the Mills Bill."

An incident which attracted great notice because it was thought to have
a bearing on the President's policy of tariff revision, was the veto of
the Allentown Public Building Bill. This bill was of a type which is one
of the rankest growths of the Congressional system--the grant of
money not for the needs of pu