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Born at Chelsea, Vt., July 9, 1840; moved to Madison, Wis., 1851; graduated at State University, 1858; studied law at University of Albany, N. Y., 1860, and admitted to bars of New York and Wisconsin; Began practice at Madison, July 9, 1860; entered Union army, and mustered out as Lieutenant-Colonel of 23d Reg. Wis. Vols. ; a Professor in Law Department of State University since 1868; Regent of same, 1880-85; member Board of Revision of Statutes, 1878; elected to Wisconsin Legislature, 1885; delegate to Democratic National Conventions, 1876-80-84; appointed Postmaster-General by President Cleveland, March 7, 1885; appointed Secretary of Interior, January 16, 1888; elected to United States Senate, January 28, 1891; member of Committees on Civil Service, Pensions, Judiciary, Post Offices and Roads and Public Lands.

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Born in Christian co., Ky., October 23, 1835; moved to Bloomington, Ill., 1852; educated at Wesleyan University and Centre College, Ky.; began practice of law in Metamora, Ill., December, 1858; Chancery Master of Woodford co., 1861-65; State's Attorney, 1865-69; Democratic Presidential Elector, 1864; moved to Bloomington, 1869; elected to 44th and 46th Congresses; member of Board of Visitors to West Point, 1877; First Assistant Postmaster-General, 1885-89; elected VicePresident on Democratic ticket, 1892; took his seat March 4, 1893.

class. On the part of the government it is too direct a kind of paternalism. As to the recipients, it is too special a gift. It is no answer to all this, as yet, to say that as no other commercial country ever succeeded in protecting itself through the establishment of steamship lines, except by starting and fostering them by subsidies, so this country has not done, and can never be expected to do, the same without the employment of similar agencies. Nor is it, as yet, a sufficient answer to say that the word subsidy in this connection can only be rendered offensive when narrowed to its apparent recipients, who really ought not to be considered at all, or, if considered, ought to find their true infinitesimal place in comparison with the tens of thousands of manufactories, the hundreds of thousands of laborers and farmers, and the millions of capital, which an exit for our over products would keep employed.

POLICY OF RECIPROCITY.

Still further, abreast of this doctrine is the policy of reciprocity; or, as we had better say, the principle of practical, or applied, reciprocity, rendered conspicuous, as formulated in the Tariff Act of 1890, and adopted as a measure of the Harrison Administration. This policy presumes that we ought to have better outlet for our manufactures. It presumes that direct trade with those from whom we buy most and to whom we sell least, would be a most desirable and advantageous trade to establish, as serving to balance accounts without draining us of gold cash. presumes that, as to certain countries at least, notably those nearest to us, and especially those whose products we take largely and which we cannot duplicate at home, we are in a position to offer what they require, of as good quality and on as fair terms, as they can secure elsewhere,

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It presumes that inasmuch as we are sufficiently advanced and sufficiently well off to remit entirely duties on their products, most of which are necessaries of life, and hitherto subjected to duty for sheer purposes of revenue,—and actually do remit such duties, that they ought to reciprocate by either abolishing or lowering their duties on articles we send to them. Not to do so would be unreciprocal. It would be for us to enlarge our inducements for their trade, by removing duties upon it, and for them to reject these inducements by refusing to modify or abolish duties on our trade.

COUNTRIES MOST INTERESTED

It is clear to every one that the countries most directly affected by what may now be called the American policy of reciprocity, are those countries to the south of us, which comprise Mexico, Central America and South America. To these may be added other countries whose, or any part of whose, products are as theirs are. This being so, even the casual student of history will be struck by a comparison of two American continental epochs or eras, the one political, the other commercial.

Let us take the political one'and consider it. It began in 1787, the date on which our Republican experiment was launched, the date of our Federal Constitution. Add thirty years to it, so as to make it embrace a period up to the date of what may be called general and successful revolt against Spanish supremacy in South America, and the establishment of the South American Republics. Fix this date at say about the year 1824. These thirty years, or thereabouts, saw the United States engaged in finding a permanent place for her political institutions. She was manfully meeting the trials to which young countries are subjected, and especially

those countries that have been compelled to conquer their independence by means of war, and have been bold enough to dare a political experiment at odds with the systems, traditions and instincts of the mother countries. She was heroically and successfully passing through the stagesmany of them severe, even to the point of a second war— which led up to full independence, to universal recognition of her right to exist as a government and nation, and to that conspicuous place in the firmament of Western Republics, which made her a cynosure in the eyes of all.

At the beginning of this period what did she find? The entire continent to the south of her was Spanish. Spanish political domination was complete as it could be, all things considered. Then came the gradual breaking away from foreign and monarchical moorings, under the lead of brave generals, like Bolivar, under the influence of enlarged ideas of freedom, under the inspiration furnished by the success of the northern experiment.

So busy had the United States been with her own experiment, that she had not had time to more than note what was going on to the south of her. Her own expanse was so ample, her resources so sufficient, her thought so distinctive, as that political confederacy on the continent had not occurred to her, or at least had taken no definite shape. Neither had political co-operation, or, in other words, political reciprocity, taken even vague shape. Sympathy existed for every effort looking to the breaking of the Spanish yoke. Indirect encouragement was offered to the erection of every republican temple founded on the ashes of European monarchy. But that was all, until the time should come when, her own political destiny being assured, and a new order of statesmen having arisen, the Republic of the North could afford to recognize in a more direct manner those of the South.

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