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.
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