son Bill had caused the panic of 1893,
and a New York maker of "Oriental rugs" created amusement by asking to
be protected from the competition, not of the Orient, but of the German
manufacturers. Since 1890 the strength of the Republican organization
had been directed toward this revision, and the leaders had held back
the silver issue lest it should derange their plans. Now, though
returned to power only on the issue of the currency, they held
themselves empowered to act as though the tariff had been dominant in
1896. The call stated the need for tariff legislation, and Reed held the
House to its task by refusing to appoint the committees without which
other business could not be undertaken.

The Dingley Bill passed the House of Representatives after a perfunctory
debate which every one regarded as only preliminary to the real struggle
in Senate and Conference Committee. In the Senate it became a new
measure at the hands of the Finance Committee, whose secretary, S.N.D.
North, was also secretary of the Wool Manufacturers' Association.
Revenue was everywhere subordinated to protection, until the Chief of
the Bureau of Statistics, Worthington C. Ford, declared that the act
would prolong the deficit which it was designed to cure. On its final
passage, the Democratic Senator, McEnery, of Louisiana, left his party
to vote for protection to sugar. He was welcomed home in August, in
spite of his "treason," by a reception committee with four hundred
vice-presidents. The silver Senators, headed by Jones, of Nevada, were
induced to support the bill. They had procured the Sherman Silver Bill
in 1890 by the same tactics, and now, holding the balance of power,
secured a group of amendments for themselves, covering hides, wool, and
ore. The measure passed the Senate early in July and became a law July
24, 1897. Senator William B. Allison, of Iowa, was largely responsible
for its final passage, although the law continued to bear the name of
its forgotten originator, Dingley.

The Republican party was in no condition in 1897 to become the vehicle
of the non-partisan reforms that the Populists advocated and that many
young Republicans had taken up. The interest in tariff legislation drove
everything else from the national organization, while returning
prosperity destroyed the mental attitude in which reforms had
flourished. Political introspection was less easy in 1897 and 1898 than
it had been in the years of confusion and enforced