The Democratic politicians naturally viewed with dismay the approach of the national election of 1888.Any one could see that the party was drifting on to the rocks and 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 public service but as a district favor.It appropriated $100,000to 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, nays 149, not voting 14.Randall, Snowden, and two other Democrats joined the Republicans in voting against the bill.
