blic service but as a district favor. It
appropriated $100,000 to put up a post-office building at Allentown,
Pennsylvania, where adequate quarters were being occupied by the
post-office at an annual rent of $1300. President Cleveland vetoed the
bill simply on the ground that it proposed an unnecessary expenditure,
but the fact was at once noted that the bill had been fathered by
Congressman Snowden, an active adherent of Randall in opposition to
the tariff reform policy of the Administration. The word went through
Congress and reverberated through the press that "there is an Allentown
for every Snowden." Mr. Morrison said in more polite phrase what came
to the same thing when he observed that "when Mr. Cleveland took decided
ground in favor of revision and reduction, he represented the patronage
of the Administration, in consequence of which he was enabled to enforce
party discipline, so that a man could no longer be a good Democrat and
favor anything but reform of the tariff."

After the Mills Bill had passed the House* and had been sent to the
Senate, it was held in committee until October 3, 1888. When it emerged
it carried an amendment which was in effect a complete substitute,
but it was not taken up for consideration until after the presidential
election, and it was meant simply as a Republican alternative to the
Mills Bill for campaign use. Consideration of the bill began on the
5th of December and lasted until the 22nd of January, when the bill was
returned to the House transformed into a new measure. It was referred to
the Ways and Means Committee, and Chairman Mills reported it back with a
resolution setting forth that "the substitution by the Senate under the
form of an amendment.... of another and different bill," is in conflict
with the section of the Constitution which "vests in the House of
Representatives the sole power to originate such a measure." The House
refused to consider the resolution, a number of Democrats led by Mr.
Randall voting with the Republicans in the negative. No further action
was taken on the bill and since that day the House has never ventured
to question the right of the Senate to amend tax bills in any way and
to any extent. As Senator Cullom remarks in his memoirs, the Democrats,
although they had long held the House and had also gained, the
Presidency, "were just as powerless to enact legislation as they had
been before."

* The Mills Bill was passed July 21, 1888, yeas 162,