There were 1,435 replies received from artists in the United States, and out of that entire number 1,345 petitioned the Congress of the United States to remove this onerous duty upon art which is for educational purposes. And I want to simply read to the committee what the artists themselves have said upon the subject.

JOSEPH H. WALKER [Mass.].-They are the workingmen. MR. MCKINLEY.-They say:

We, as American artists, proud of our country, confident of its future, and jealous of its honor and credit, are opposed to all special privileges and discrimination in our behalf. We ask no protection, deeming it worse than useless. Art is a universal republic, of which all artists are citizens whatever be their country or clime. All that we ask is that there should be a free field and no favor, and the prize adjudged to the best.

[Applause on the Democratic side.]

HENRY CABOT LODGE [Mass.].-An impost is either a tax, pure and simple, for the purpose of raising revenue only, or is a duty imposed to protect home industries. In the nature of the case this duty must belong to the former class. It is not a protective duty, for no one, of course, pretends for a moment that you can create artistic genius by a protective tariff. The artists of America, who are the producers in this case, desire free art and they desire it in the interest of art alone.

I say let us encourage the importation of works of art in the interests of the people, for it is really and in the end in their interest, and in theirs alone. All the greatest works of art in the world to-day belong to the people, and are gathered in the galleries and museums, which are open to mankind, and which give pleasure and instruction to all alike, to gentle and simple, to rich and poor. The rich man buys them, it is true, but in the end the people own them, and the ownership of the people is perpetual.

Let us encourage the importation of all that is best in painting and sculpture, and not, by degrading them to the rank of a luxury, put a tax upon education and popular pleasure and instruction. Let us leave them free, too, for the sake of our artists and for the benefit and development of American art. [Applause.]

Our own artists are now forced to go to Europe, where schools of art are thrown open to them, owing largely to the fact that we put a burden of this character upon art here and keep pictures and sculpture out of the country, drying up the springs from which the museums and galleries are fed.

WILLIAM H. H. COWLES [N. C.].-How about the copyright bill? We want free knowledge as well as free art.

MR. LODGE. It stands on exactly the same principle as the copyright bill. Universal copyright, which places all writers on the same footing, is free copyright. I would make art and literature free, and every artist and every literary man asks for the same thing. They ask justice and a fair field, nothing more and nothing less.

MR. CANNON.-The gentleman from Ohio says the artists in this country are not demanding protection. I do not vote for this bill as a matter of protection for the artist. I vote for it in harmony with the platform of my own party, recognizing that these works of art are luxuries and therefore, in the language of the platform, the men who buy them in this country to the extent of a round million of dollars every year can afford to pay 30 per cent. ad valorem upon them. [Applause.] That is the reason I propose the amendment.

Now, a further word about this matter. For schools of art, for art purposes, and for institutions of education, under the law now and in this bill, these works come in free for that purpose, and there is the education of the people to which reference has been so strongly made.

Another thing: over on the other side, in Italy, the sculptor who does the mechanical work and carves out the slab of marble works cheap. It is not done by the artist who conceives the sculpture himself; and therefore I can readily understand how parties of great wealth in this country, who are able to buy these works of art when they do come over, and how people of this country who desire to avail themselves of that kind of labor on the other side, can go to the marble quarries there and make this statuary out of cheap marble, utilizing the cheap labor for that purpose.

I think this provision should be stricken from the bill, and I ask a vote upon the amendment. [Cries of "Vote!" "Vote!"]

WILLIAM C. P. BRECKINRIDGE [Ky.].-Mr. Chairman, extremes meet. The artist is indeed the highest form of skilled labor. You cannot think of a man having higher art and more skill than he; and with the eye and intellect of genius and the hand of skill he produces a great picture; and therefore he is in favor of free trade, and the more you get of skilled labor the less protection you will need for anything. [Applause on the Democratic side.]

I am in favor of the provision of the bill because it is a step in the right direction. I am in favor of it because it is becom

ing in a great and imperial republic to open her doors as she does her heart to works of genius of the past or of the present.

When, Mr. Speaker, the French found we were excluding her works of art it touched her heart, because she loved her art next to glory; so she sought to hurt our feelings. When she saw we had stabbed her art she undertook to hurt us in our most sensitive part; and so she excluded the American hog. [Laughter and applause and cries of "Vote!" "Vote!"]

The amendment was defeated by a non-partisan vote of 54 ayes and 77 nays.

The bill was passed on May 21 by a strictly partisan vote of 164 to 142.

The Senate referred the bill to the Committee on Finance, which, on June 17, reported it back with amendments. It came up for discussion on July 7, and was debated almost to the exclusion of other matters until September 10, when it was passed by a vote of 40 to 29.

Almost every Senator spoke upon the bill, many of the speeches being able, and several of unusual brilliance, but, as their arguments were necessarily repetitions of those in the preceding House debate, they are not presented here.

The House refused to concur in the Senate amendments, and a conference was appointed. After considerable debate the report of the conference was agreed to on October 1, 1890, and approved by President Harrison on the same day.

In the presidential election of 1892 the tariff was the chief issue, and upon it Grover Cleveland was elected to a second term of office.

CHAPTER XIV

THE TARIFF OF 1894
[THE WILSON BILL]

William L. Wilson [W. Va.] Introduces New Tariff Bill in the HouseDebate: in Favor, Mr. Wilson, Tom L. Johnson [O.], William C. P. Breckinridge [Ky.], Jerry Simpson [Kan.], W. Bourke Cockran [N. Y.], William J. Bryan [Neb.], Charles F. Crisp [Ga.]; Opposed, Julius C. Burrows [Mich.], John Dalzell [Pa.], Joseph G. Cannon [Ill.], Thaddeus B. Mahon [Pa.], Nelson Dingley [Me.], Sereno E. Payne [N. Y.], Joseph H. Walker [Mass.], Charles A. Boutelle [Me.], Thomas B. Reed [Me.]-Bill Is Passed-Senate Amends Bill in Direction of Protection and Passes It-Mr. Reed Taunts Democratic Representatives After Futile Joint Conferences House Accepts Senate Amendments-Debate: Mr. Wilson, Mr. Reed, Lafe Pence [Col.]-Bill Becomes Law Without Signature of the President.

ON

N December 19, 1893, William L. Wilson [W. Va.], chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, introduced in the House a bill of the majority of the committee revising the tariff. On December 21 Thomas B. Reed [Me.] presented the minority report on the bill. On January 8, 1894, the bill came up for discussion in the Committee of the Whole.

THE WILSON TARIFF BILL

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 8-FEBRUARY 1, 1894 Mr. Wilson supported the bill in a speech consuming the greater part of two days (January 8-9).

The majority members of the Committee of Ways and Means have had to deal with a system that has grown up through thirty years of progressive legislation. They do not profess that they have been able, at one stroke of reform, to free it from injustice or to prepare a bill directly responsive

to the command of the people. They have dealt as intelligently and as fairly as they could with existing conditions. Even in their desire and purpose to do this they have been hampered

The Discharged Nurse (peevishly)-Dear me! It grieves me to death to see how that child's wasting away since they changed its food.

by the usual difficulties of reform and by some very unusual difficulties. We knew and expected that some friends would fall away from us whenever we presented any definite measure of legislation. We knew from all experience of the past that not all who march bravely in the parade are found in line when the musketry begins to rattle. [Applause.]