abolished largely by the simple device of spending it. The revenue was reduced by making duties which were almost prohibitory entirely so and by abandoning the large income derived from the duty on raw sugar, which at that time was produced only in small quantities in this country. Heavy duties were levied on many agricultural products which were not and could not be imported, except in very small quantities, and a successful attempt was made to establish new industries, such as the manufacture of tin plate and certain grades of silk. Finally, since the revenue still promised to be excessive, the appropriations for pensions and for other purposes were swollen beyond all previous records.

Such was the policy embodied in the McKinley Bill. It proved to be a dangerous policy for the Republican party. The effect of the bill was to raise prices all along the line. Every drummer became an effective campaign agent for the Democrats; and in the election in the fall of 1890, following the passage of the act, the Republicans were reduced to an almost insignificant minority in the House of Representatives. Two years later the Democrats, for the first time since the war, elected their presidential candidate, a large majority in the lower House and a small majority in the Senate. Some of the wiser Republicans, such as James G. Blaine and Benjamin Butterworth, one of Mr. Hanna's intimate friends, had predicted this result and tried to avoid it; but in truth forces had been unloosed which were beyond individual control. The policy of the Republicans in the session of 1889-1890 must be considered as a culminating expression of a method of economic legislation which had prevailed in this country at least since the Civil War. Under this method the only interests consulted in respect to a piece of economic legislation were the special interests thereby benefited; and the protective tariff was only one illustration of the practice.

In the case of the McKinley Bill and the legislation which accompanied it, the practice had been pushed to an extreme which exposed the incompatibility between the unregulated demands of a special interest and the manifest requirements of the national interest; but the error was natural, and the manufacturers were only behaving as all the other special interests

had behaved. The American economic system had been conceived as a huge profit-sharing concern, the function of the government being to encourage productive enterprise in every form by lending assistance to the producers. Business of all kinds had thus become inextricably entangled with politics, and in one way or another the private income of the majority of American citizens was very much influenced by the government legislation. And whatever criticisms may be passed on this economic system or whatever the ensuing excesses, it was undoubtedly planned in good faith for the purpose of stimulating American economic expansion in all its branches and of contributing to the prosperity of all classes of American society.

The business men and politicians of the day were so accustomed to his method of promoting American economic welfare that they accepted it as a matter of course. Among others both William McKinley and Mark Hanna accepted it as so fundamental as scarcely to need any defence. Mistakes might be made in applying the policy, abuses might arise under its administration of the resulting legislation, and different special interests might fight over the distribution of the benefits, but the system itself was rooted in the American tradition of economic legislation. In spite of protests against specific excesses and abuses, public opinion overwhelmingly supported the system as a whole, and its inevitable effects were to make business prosperity depend upon the course of political agitation and the result of elections. It was precisely the interdependence between business and politics which gave to a man like Mark Hanna, who embodied the alliance, an opportunity of effective influence.

The Republican disasters in the elections of 1890 brought with them unpleasant consequences, possible and actual, for Mark Hanna and his immediate associates. In order to understand the resulting political complications, we must return to the course of political events in the state of Ohio. The prompt exhibition after the Convention of Mr. Hanna's friendship for McKinley was balanced by an even prompter exhibition of his hostility to Mr. Foraker. The latter was once again a candidate for governor. Mr. Hanna attended the State Convention held in June, 1889, at Columbus, and opposed Mr.

Foraker's nomination. McKinley also was present and made a speech nominating another candidate, in which he had remarked that "no obligation to party can justify treachery to party associates." But Mr. Foraker was too strong for his enemies. He was nominated and stumped the state with his usual vigor. He was opposed by the Democrats, chiefly on the ground that he was seeking a third term, and he was beaten in spite of the fact that some of the Republican ticket were elected. His defeat increased the schism between himself and the McKinleyites, who were erroneously accused in the newspapers of treachery to the state ticket.

Another incident of the fall of 1889 served to intensify the ill feeling which certain of Mr. Hanna's friends bore towards the redoubtable Governor. Late in September a Cincinnati newspaper published an alleged contract which implicated the Democratic candidate for governor, James E. Campbell, in an attempt to use his official position as a congressional representative for the purpose of selling to the government a patent ballot-box. A copy of the contract had been furnished to the editor of the paper by Governor Foraker. A few days later it was divulged that John Sherman, William McKinley and Benjamin Butterworth, among others, were also signers of the alleged contract. It developed almost immediately that the paper was a forgery and that the Governor had been misled into accepting it as genuine. The fact that Mr. Foraker had given to the press a paper implicating prominent Republicans of Ohio in a dishonorable transaction without giving them any warning or allowing them any hearing was attributed by the injured gentlemen to personal malice.

In the meantime Mark Hanna was trying to procure from a Republican President certain offices for his political associates in Cleveland-thus compensating himself for the loss of his influence with the Governor. But for some reason President Harrison disliked Mr. Hanna and either ignored or forgot the efforts which the latter had used on behalf of his election. Every one of his recommendations was turned down. He did not even succeed when he requested the appointment of an old friend as lighthouse master at the end of the Cleveland Breakwater. These recommendations was usually made through

Senator Sherman and indorsed by him, but other candidates were always appointed. Senator Sherman wrote to Mr. Hanna in April, 1889, "I am weary and discouraged,-weary from pressure based upon the opinion that I can do something for my friends, and discouraged because I have not been able to do anything."

Mr. Hanna also became involved in a controversy with Congressman T. E. Burton about the appointment to the head of the Cleveland post-office. Mr. Hanna was backing our old friend William M. Bayne, the man whom he had urged twice upon Foraker for the oil inspectorship and whom he had nominated for mayor. Mr. Burton's candidate was A. T. Anderson. In this instance the Postmaster-general, Mr. Wanamaker, was favorable to Mr. Hanna, but his influence was of no avail. President Harrison insisted that Mr. Burton, as the local congressman, was entitled to the appointment; and he received it. Mr. Burton states that his relations with Mr. Hanna remained friendly after this little passage-at-arms, but they were not quite as friendly as before. Evidently at this particular period Mr. Hanna must have felt that however interesting was this game of politics, the winnings were small in proportion to the losses.

He had, however, one compensation. He was making some very fast friends among some very fine men. At the time when his political intimacy with both Sherman and McKinley was increasing, he was also becoming extremely friendly with Benjamin Butterworth. Mr. Butterworth was not only an able man and a disinterested public servant, but he was gifted with a highly expansive and sympathetic disposition. The warmth of his feelings towards his friends obtained a very characteristic expression in his correspondence with them. His letters to Mr. Hanna are not like the letters of Mr. Hanna's other associates, that is, merely dry business scripts. They overflow with expressions of personal feeling, and are the kind of letters which only a man of lively affections and some imagination could write to a sympathetic friend. Letters of this kind are so rare in the life of a man like Mr. Hanna that they deserve to be quoted for their own and for his sake.

Under the date of June 12, 1890, Mr. Butterworth writes: