mocrats solidly opposed, and was finally enacted
on July 14, 1890.

Thus by relying upon political tactics, the managers of the Republican
party were able to reconcile conflicting interests, maintain party
harmony, and present a record of achievement which they hoped to make
available in the fall elections. But while they had placated the party
factions, they had done nothing to satisfy the people as a whole or to
redress their grievances. The slowness of congressional procedure
in matters of legislative reform allowed the amplest opportunity to
unscrupulous business men to engage, in the meantime, in profiteering at
the public expense. They were able to lay in stocks of goods at the
old rates so that an increase of customs rates, for example, became
an enormous tax upon consumers without a corresponding gain to the
Treasury; for the yield was largely intercepted on private accounts by
an advance in prices. The Tariff Bill, which William McKinley reported
on April 16, 1890, became law only on the 1st of October, so there were
over five months during which profiteers could stock at old rates
for sales at the new rates and thus reap a rich harvest. The public,
however, was infuriated, and popular sentiment was so stirred by the
methods of retail trade that the politicians were both angered and
dismayed. Whenever purchasers complained of an increase of price, they
received the apparently plausible explanation, "Oh, the McKinley Bill
did it." To silence this popular discontent, the customary arts and
cajoleries of the politicians proved for once quite ineffectual.

At the next election, the Republicans carried only eighty-eight seats in
the House out of 332--the most crushing defeat they had yet sustained.
By their new lease of power in the House, however, the Democratic
party could not accomplish any legislation, as the Republicans still
controlled the Senate. The Democratic leaders, therefore, adopted the
policy of passing a series of bills attacking the tariff at what were
supposed to be particularly vulnerable points. These measures, the
Republicans derided as "pop-gun bills," and in the Senate they turned
them over to the committee on finance for burial. Both parties were rent
by the silver issue, but it was noticeable that in the House which was
closest to the people the opposition to the silver movement was stronger
and more effective than in the Senate.

Notwithstanding the popular revolt against the Republican po