could have brought the bill to a vote in the Senate, there was no time to force it through the House in the last weeks of a Congressional session. As a matter of fact they were powerless even to secure a vote on it in the Senate. The opposition of the Democrats was furious and determined. They had decided that it should not be voted upon at that session, and the rules of the Senate permitted them to discuss the measure at sufficient length to kill it. The Republican leaders must have realized their powerlessness. In pressing the bill they must have been making a demonstration in force, preparatory to a better sustained movement under the more favorable conditions of the ensuing long session.

Just as soon as the fifty-seventh Congress assembled on Dec. 1, 1901, a renewed attempt was made in the Senate to pass a subsidy bill differing in certain essential respects from the former measure. Its discussion was begun on March 3, 1902, and it occupied the entire time of the Senate until March 17, when a vote was obtained. During this second debate Mr. Hanna played, if anything, an even more important part than he had the year before. He did not, indeed, make any long set speech on behalf of the bill, but he made a number of extemporaneous statements in reference to particular phases of the discussion; and superficially he was more interested in the measure and more responsible for it than was the Chairman of the Committee.

The vote taken on March 17 was favorable to the bill. There were forty-two Senators recorded in its favor and only thirtytwo in opposition-its opponents including four such good Republicans as Senators Spooner, Allison, Dolliver and Proctor. It was then sent to the House, but although the session was still young, it was never voted on by that body. The attempt to stimulate the building and operation of American ships in foreign trade consequently failed; and its failure under the circumstances must have been due to the influence of very powerful opposing currents of public opinion. At a period when the Republican party was in full control of the government and was powerfully organized for united action, its most prominent leaders were unable to secure the acceptance of a measure which, whatever its faults, was an honest and care

fully considered attempt to meet an apparent public need and redeem a party pledge. The failure was, moreover, not due to the Democratic minority, which had far less power under the rules of the House than it had under the rules of the Senate. It was due chiefly to the impossibility of creating much interest in the object of the bill among Middle Western Republicans. They failed to see how the interests of their constituents would be helped by subsidy legislation; and in the absence of any local benefit they did not want to incur the unpopularity which might result from the actual appropriation of national funds for the benefit of a particular industry.

If the attempt to pass the bill had been successful, I should have been obliged to consider in detail its provisions, its merits and its consequences. But the ultimate failure of the attempt makes it unnecessary to discuss the measure, except in relation to the motives and ideas which induced Mr. Hanna so enthusiastically and tenaciously to favor it. Why he attached so much importance to it has already been indicated in a general way; but it is desirable to explain somewhat more in detail and partly in his own words his personal attitude towards the matter. Its importance in his eyes will seem either blind or sinister to people who object on principle to any attempt at the promotion of a public interest by the subsidizing and encouragement of private interests. But Mr. Hanna never addressed his arguments to people of such opinions. The system to which he had been accustomed all his life, and which determined all his own economic ideas was one which had identified the public interest with the encouragement of every phase of private productive enterprise. It had deliberately sought to bestow upon the farmers, the manufacturers, the miners, the cattlemen, the timbermen, the railroads and corporations of all kinds direct or indirect subsidies. Such had been the national economic policy since the Civil War. It was the system actually in existence, and it seemed to him really national in its scope, in its meaning and in the distribution of its benefits.

He is continually arguing that the adoption of some measure which would restore American shipping to the high seas is a necessary part of this national economic policy. Considering the protection which the government extended to other in

dustries, it was unjust as well as unwise that similar encouragement should be denied to American shipping engaged in foreign trade; and there were many ways in which the national economic interests were really endangered thereby. A war between Germany and England might work upon the large percentage of our foreign commerce carried under the flags of those powers, a serious injury which the government of the United States would be powerless to avert. The efficiency of the American navy and its supplies of men and auxiliary ships depended on the existence of a flourishing merchant marine. In these and other similar respects the encouragement of American shipping was merely a political precaution demanded by the necessities of general national policy; but it was equally demanded by the prevailing conditions of international commercial warfare. All the other great trading nations had built up a merchant marine partly for the sake of stimulating their export trade. American merchants and manufacturers were hampered by the lack of such an engine, and the benefit of supplying the need would be out of all proportion to its actual cost.

"The whole question," he wrote in an article in the National Magazine for January, 1901, "resolves itself into this: If the American people can be brought to understand the need and value of an American mercantile mar ne to the nation, they will support a bill which makes provisions for just such an accomplishment. The benefit aimed at is for the nation. To secure that benefit for the nation, incidentally certain individuals those willing to risk their capital in American-built ships in our foreign trade-will be safeguarded against loss in competition with foreign ships. This result, it cannot be said too emphatically, will utterly fail of accomplishment unless a very substantial reduction is brought about in the rates of freight charged for the carriage of our exports and imports, because only by reducing rates can American ships expect to wrest any of the business from their foreign competitors. The reduction in rates will, it is believed, several times repay the American people for whatever expenditure the government may make directly to the beneficiaries of the bill." Again in his speech in favor of the bill, delivered on Dec. 13, 1900, he said:

"This question is broader than can be written in the lines of the bill. It will be widespread in its benefits. It is not aimed at any class or any particular industry. It is one of those measures whose influence will permeate every industry and every class in the length and breadth of the United States. When I am told that the people of the interior of this country are not interested in the shipping question, I say it is not true in fact. Every man, no matter what his vocation in life, is interested and will be benefited directly or indirectly, because you cannot create an industry like this, requiring first the development of our raw materials and then the construction of ships which open up the markets of the world and give greater opportunities to our merchants and manufacturers, without benefiting every industry and every line of business."

These words of Senator Hanna's were uttered in absolute good faith. He sincerely believed that in promoting legislation which in his opinion would restore the American flag to the high seas, he was making an essential contribution to a constructive national business policy. He could not understand why so many Republicans who were willing to subsidize manufacturers with high protective rates should shrink from granting to the shipping industry similar encouragement. He himself knew that there was no essential difference between paying the money directly out of the Treasury and collecting it indirectly from the consumers-except perhaps that the second method was more costly. Yet certain Republicans and protectionist Democrats talked as if the two cases were different, and as if the only object of the ship-subsidy bill was to make a gift of the people's money to a group of wealthy men interested in ocean transportation. An accusation of this kind was continually being flung at his head by the Democrats. These charges of bad faith and equivocal motives aroused in Mr. Hanna an honest indignation, and on one occasion, Feb. 15, 1901, he answered the taunts with dignity and selfrestraint. I quote his short speech on that occasion almost in full:

"Mr. President, I have listened patiently for days to this discussion, and have listened with astonishment to many of the reckless statements which have been made by the opponents of this bill, state

ments which cannot be borne out by facts and which are intended to place before the country a misconception of the merits of this measure. I have known perfectly well of the intended opposition to defeat the measure. I have heard insinuations with reference to men who have been connected with the measure in this body and out of it which made me blush, and I resent them. I have heard the scolding from our friend from Colorado [Mr. Teller]. But, Mr. President, we are not children. We believe when we present a measure on the floor of this Senate and advocate it, whether as a Republican measure or simply as a public measure, that we are entitled at least to be considered as honest in our purpose. From the time that this bill was introduced until this hour the effort I have made to secure its enactment into law has been for the purpose of accomplishing what it has been stated it would accomplish - to upbuild the merchant marine of the United States and to better the conditions of the people.

"I do not claim to have any greater technical or general knowledge than the average of men, but I claim to have some knowledge, as the result of experience, that leads me to make certain deductions as to economic measures; and when I advocate this measure from my seat in this Senate I think I should have the same right and the same consideration at the hands of this body that I am willing to grant to any other Senator; that I am sincere and honest in my convictions, and that I am advocating the measure, not for the purpose, as is claimed here, of looting the Treasury of the United States, but for advancing the material interests of the people of the United States.

"Mr. President, as far as I am concerned as one of the advocates of this shipping bill, after having made this statement I propose to occupy the same position from now until the 4th of March that I have occupied from the beginning to demand at the hands of this body fair treatment for an honest measure with an honest intent; and I do not propose to be side-tracked by any Senator from the other side of the Chamber. I myself will decide when I will go on the side-track.

"For my part I have tried to be fair, and even liberal, to the other side; and I am met with the taunt, almost descending to personality, that the purposes of those who are advocating this measure is to pay back subscriptions to political campaign funds, to pay political debts, and that the Republican party is the only party that descends to such political measures an insinuation that, by virtue of my position as Chairman of the National Republican Committee, I am responsible for this legislation here in order to make recompense to those who, you say, have contributed to the campaign fund of the Republican