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Born near Rainsborough, Ohio, July 5, 1846; enlisted from farm in 89th Ohio Regiment; served in army of Cumberland till close of war; Sergeant in 1862; First Lieutenant in 1864; Captain in 1865; Aide to General Slocum; after war entered Wesleyan University; graduated at Cornell, 1869; studied law and admitted to bar; Judge of Cincinnati Superior Court, 1879-82; nominated as Republican candidate for Gov ernor in 1883, and defeated; re-nominated in 1885 and elected; renominated, but defeated by Governor Campbell in 1889; noted for fiery eloquence and dovotion to cause of soldiers; elected to U. S. Senate, 1896, to succeed Hon. Calvin S. Brice, whose term expires March 3, 1897.

to American reciprocity. She could not, she would not, sit idly by and witness this threatened inroad into her trade, this disturbance of the commercial nests she had built and snugly feathered in Central and South America. In affairs of this kind, and amid such conditions, affairs and conditions which concern only national pocketbooks and national prestige, there is absolutely no sentiment, nothing to be hoped for from real or imaginary national condescension or sympathy. We must have expected just what came, unless all history belied itself, to wit, the criticism, the antagonism, the counter efforts of the nations whose interests were touched and whose trade was threatened. We must have expected even more, and that was preparation on our part to hold what we could gain, on the principle that our right to obtain was equal with the right of any other nation, and in a geographic sense more natural than with any nation across the sea. What we could not have anticipated was that this country itself should be the first to strike the blow looked for only from other countries, and that at a time when the experiment of reciprocity gave every guarantee of repeating commercially the history which led to the Monroe Doctrine in diplomacy and politics.

When the Monroe Doctrine was announced, and on every occasion that has required its re-assertion, it was notice to Europe that the American republics constituted a political system so continental, unique and independent, that monarchical interference with it would not be tolerated. The introduction of reciprocity into American commerce in 1890, was regarded as a departure of equal moment with that political departure of Monroe in 1823. It was looked upon as the beginning of a continental era looking to commercial freedom and independence, and as

likely to result in the commercial emancipation and solidarity of American countries, as that of Monroe did politically.

REPEAL OF RECIPROCITY.

The life of the reciprocity experiment was unhappily short. What was most unfortunate about it was that it was forced to bow to the behests of party. As has been seen, it was in no sense a party problem, but one of plain business. Its workings were of the purely economic order. To sustain it helped no party. To sacrifice it helped no party. No time had been given to ascertain its real worth, nor to assert as a fact that it had proven harmful. What time was given it, pointed to an outcome highly beneficial to the country, and which should have been the delight of all parties.

The passage of the Wilson Tariff Bill of 1894 left reciprocity without the sanction of law, left it to fall after an experimental life of four years. There had grown up about it, and by means of it, treaties with nearly every country to the south of us, and with many in Europe, establishing commerce on a reciprocal basis. These treaties were in operation when the Reciprocity Act was repeated by the Wilson Tariff Bill. They fell to the ground with that repeal, much to the regret of all the treaty countries, and to the anger and contempt of not a few of them. The milling interests, live stock industries, and manufactures of furniture and farming implements, in this country felt the loss of reciprocity to a lamentable extent. The largely increased export trade, especially to Cuba, Brazil and other important countries, which had come about under reciprocity, fell off and the oid trade balance against us was reestablished. How heavy and ruinous

this balance was in 1895, has already been seen in this article.

As has already been intimated, the countries of Europe with whom reciprocity treaties had been made, entered their protests in our State Department against their repeal. These protests passed unheeded. They, therefore, began a system of retaliation by excluding our products from their ports, much to our commercial detriment, and especially to the injury of our agricultural interests. This humiliating and injurious warfare they could not carry on under the reciprocity treties which pledged mutual consideration of international products entering into commerce.

THE MONROE DOCTRINE, AND VENE

ZUELA DISPUTE.

HISTORY OF THE DISPUTE.

THE dispute between Great Britain and Venezuela respecting the western boundary of British Guiana began with the cession of the Colony of British Guiana to Great Britain by Holland, under the Netherland treaty of 1814. Venezuela, in all her constitutions, declared her territorial limits to be that of the Captaincy-General of Venezuela, in 1810, but for prudential reasons was content with the general line of the Essequibo river as boundary between herself and British Guiana.

Great Britain never laid claim to a definite western boundary for her possessions till 1840, when she commissioned Sir Robert Schomburgk to lay down boundaries, which he did by means of landmarks and maps. Venezuela protested so vehemently against the Schomburgk boundary, that Great Britain was forced to explain that she regarded the line as only tentative, and as part of her plan to arrive at boundary conclusions between herself and Brazil as well as Venezuela. The monuments of the line were removed by the express orders of Lord Aberdeen, who in 1844, proposed another line, beginning at the river Moroco.

After 1840, Great Britain drew several lines, all more or less imaginary, but each one infringing more and more on Venezuela territory, and correspondingly enlarging

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