period of his life, had endeavored to promote more intimate relations with the Spanish-American peoples. James G. Blaine, Secretary of State under Garfield, entertained a similar ambition and was the principal promoter of the enterprise. The opposition to the movement was based on prejudice-mostly political. Mr. Blaine was accused unjustly of a purpose to create in the United States a policy similar to Disraeli's "high-jingoism" in Great Britain. The United States was to become the arbiter of the Western nations. Το this end the Central American and South American States must be brought, first into intimacy with our republic, and afterwards be made to follow her lead in warding off all Europeanism.

The death of Garfield prevented the institution of some such policy as that here vaguely defined. Nevertheless, in 1884, an Act was passed by Congress authorizing the President to appoint a commission "to ascertain and report upon the best modes of securing more intimate international commercial relations between the United States and the several countries of Central and South America." Commissioners were sent out to the countries referred to, and the movement for the Congress was started. Not until May of 1888, hower, was the Act passed providing for the Congress. The Spanish-American nations responded to the overtures and took the necessary steps to meet the United States in the conference. The objects contemplated were, first, to promote measures pertaining to the peace and prosperity of the peoples concerned; to establish customs-unions among them; to improve the means of communication between the ports of the States represented, and to advance the commercial interests and political harmony of the nations of the New World.

The Spanish-American and Portuguese-American States, to the number of nine, appointed their delegates, and the

Brazil,

latter arrived in the United States in the autumn of 1889. President Harrison on his part named ten members of the Congress as follows: John F. Hanson, of Georgia; Morris M. Estee, of California; Henry G. Davis, of West Virginia; Andrew Carnegie, of Pennsylvania; T. Jefferson Coolidge, of Massachusetts; Clement Studebaker, of Indiana; Charles R. Flint, of New York; William H. Trescot, of South Car olina; Cornelius N. Bliss, of New York, and John B. Henderson, of Missouri. Mexico sent two representatives, namely, Matias Romero and Enrique A. Maxia. still an empire, also sent two delegates: J. G. do Amaral Valente and Salvador de Mendonca. The representative of Honduras was Jeronimo Zelaya; Fernando Cruz was delegate of Guatemala, and Jacinto Castellanos, of San Salvador. Costa Rica sent as her representative Manuel Aragon. Horatio Guzman, Minister of Nicaragua, represented his government in the Congress. The Argentine Republic had two delegates: Roque Saenz Pena and Manuel Quintana. Chili sent two delegates: Emilio C. Varas and José Alfonso. The representatives of the United States of Colombia were José M. Hurtado, Carlos Martinez Silva and Climaco Calderon. The delegates of Venezuela were Nicanor Bolet Peraza, José Andrade and Francisco Antonio Silva; that of Peru was F. C. C. Zegarra; that of Ecuador, José Maria Placido Caamano; that of Uruguay, Alberto Nin; that of Bolivia, Juan F. Velarde; that of Hayti, Arthur Laforestrie, and that of Paraguay, José S. Decoud.

The representatives met in Washington City in October. Committees were formed to report to the body suitable action on the subjects which might properly come before it for discussion. From the first the proceedings took a peculiarly practical direction. The great questions of commerce were at the bottom of the reports, the debates and the actions which followed. Nor can it be doubted that the move

ment as a whole conduced in the highest degree to the friendship, prosperity and mutual interests of the nations concerned.

At the same time an International Maritime Conference, for which provisions had been made in the legislation of several nations, convened at Washington. In this case the States of Europe were concerned in common with those of the New World. All the maritime nations were invited by the Act of Congress to send representatives to the National Capital in the following year, to consider the possibility of establishing uniform rules and regulations for the government of vessels at sea, and for the adoption of a common system of marine signals. Twenty-six nations accepted the call of the American government, and appointed delegates to the Congress. They, too, as well as the representatives of the Pan-American Congress, held their sittings in November and December of 1889. The same practical ability and good sense as related to the subjects under consideration were shown by the members of the Maritime Conference as by those of the sister body, and the results reached were equally encouraging and equally gratifying, not only to the government of the United States, but to all the countries whose interests were involved in the discussions.

CHAPTER XLVI.

WE may here revert briefly to the work of the Fiftyfirst Congress. The proceedings of that branch of the gov ernment were marked with much partisan bitterness and excitement. The first question which occupied the attention of the body was the revision of the tariff. In the preceding pages we have developed, with sufficient amplitude, the history and various phases of this question. The Civil War brought in a condition of affairs which must, in the nature of the case, entail the tariff issue on the rest of the century. More than two decades elapsed after the close of the conflict before the attention of the American people was sufficiently aroused to the nature of the laws bearing on their industrial condition. Then it was that they first became aware of the fact that a schedule of customs duties, which had been brought forth under the exigency of war, still existed, and that under the operation of this schedule a vast array of protected industries had come into existence. Such industries had grown great and strong. Around them consolidated corporations had been formed, having millions of money at their command and vast ramifications into political society. As a consequence, the revenues of the United States were swollen to mountainous proportions. The treasury at Washington became engorged, and at length the necessity was developed of doing something in the nature of reform.

The condition of affairs in the treasury-depending as it did upon the tariff system-entailed two prodigious

evils: The surplus served as a motive in Congress for all manner of jobbery and extravagant expenditure. In the second place, it enabled the combined monopolies of the country to uphold themselves by affecting national legislation in favor of the protected industries and against the common interest of the people as a whole. The situation was really a danger and constant menace. It was for this reason that President Cleveland, as already noted, sent his celebrated annual message to Congress touching upon the single question of the evils of the existing system, and asking that body to take such steps as should lead to a general reform.

We have already seen how this question was uppermost in the presidential contest of 1888. The Democratic platform boldly espoused the doctrine of tariff reform, but stopped short-out of an expedient deference to the manufacturing interests-of absolute free trade. The Republican platform declared for a revision of the tariff system--such a revision as might preserve the manufacturing interests, but favor those industries which seemed to be disparaged. This clause of the platform proved to be wonderfully effective in the political campaign. The event showed, however, that it was a shuffle. A very large part of the Republicans understood by "revision of the tariff" such legislation as should reduce and reform the existing system, not merely change it and adapt it to the interests of the protected classes.

With the opening of the Fifty-first Congress, it soon became apparent that "revision of the tariff was not to mean a reform by reduction and curtailments of the schedule, but that the actual movement was in the other direction. Representative William McKinley, of Ohio, chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, brought in a measure which passed into history under the name of the McKinley Bill, and which, finally adopted by the Republican majority, was