Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1893-02-24
SENATOR MORRILL,.
He Tells an Interesting Story

the Work.
Few men prominently in public life have
kept themselves so well out of the news
papers, and allowed their work to speak
for itself, as has Justin S. Morrill,. Re-
Gently, however, he consented to talk at
his house in Washington with George AL
fred Townsend, the well-known writer and
newspaper correspondent, and the inter
view was printed in the Sunday edition of
the New York Sun. We copy that portion
relating to the tariff, and also Mr. Morrilps
views on two or three other subjects of
special interest to Vermonters. In opening
his article Mr.. Townsend says:
MIR. MOrrIIps Personality.
Justin Smith Morrill, is tall man, once
of the salient, grizzled Green Mountain
make, but now resembling Charles Sum-
ner at So with the same large, well-formed
nose, shock of gray hair, blue, lighting
eyes under fairly deep brows, side whiskers
and look at times of some English peer,
like Brougham or Palmerston. He has
neither mental nor personal affectations;
sits in his age like the lord of winter wrap
ped in his sleighman's furs, and can listen
with faith and laugh beamingly. His dig
nifty is natural and has a rustic, republican
lining. Behind the man of affairs one
feels the country heart. Though a store
keeper for years, trade has left no traces
upon him but its urbanity. He has gone
on like a perennial spring, without mis-
takes, acerbties or neutrality. Neither
within nor without could temptation APP
proach him, because his constituency
changes no more than he and its service is
next to lifes engagement
1t is not often that we find Americans of
public career who have lived as fixed lives
as Englishmen of corresponding pursuits
and station. Mr.. Morrill, lives in STAFFORD,
where he was born in the first term of
James Madison. He was six terms in Con-
gress, commencing with the 34th Congress,
and after that u years was elected to the
Senate without either pains or haste, in
fact declining to entertain the proposition
of going there until he had served out his
term in the lower house. When the office
seeks the man he is not very speedily turn
ed out of it, and, therefore, Mr.. Morrill,
has been nearly 26 years in the Senate, and
if he should live out his term-to 1897
will be 81 years old. There is probably no
man about this government who so nearly
carries out the idea of old world English
habits, though he is animated with the
bright young views of his own country.
Tariff Reminiscence.
at occurred to me, Mr.. Morrill,, that as
we have reached period in the course of
revenue legislation, you could tell me
something about making the Morrill, tariff,
which believe was your work"
"When | came to Congress-" said Mr..
Morrill,, tive were working under the Rob
ert Walker tariff, which was next to no
tariff 1t had not worked we'll and discon-
tent was pretty general. Lewis Campbell,
uncle of the late governor of Ohio, who
was in that day radical wing, had made
another tariff, generally reducing the duties,
but raising them in some exceptional cases.
In the course of time we had a South Car
DINA speaker, Mr.. Orr, and it was suggest
ed to him by Galusha Grow that | should
go upon the ways and means committee.
Said he: Il mean to put Morrill, there, but
do not want to do it until Banks, who
has been elected governor of Massachu-
sets, shall retire from the committee He
did put me on at that change. Then COM
menced the revision of the schedules with
the object of finding an opportunity to pass
a bill with protection, and | believed in
protection to agriculture also. Our agri-
cultural productions were much depressed.
W nat was true Oh ' tTlnOnJ Was true vi luc
states along the Canadian line, generally
speaking. | saw the necessity of creating
home markets to consume the surplus,
which it was hard for us to send to market
at points as distant as Boston and New
York. For a good while, on the west side
our market was Albany.
1.-The favorite dumping ground of Eu-
rope, and especially of the British king
dom was the United States. The foreign
manufacturers, when they found surplus
of goods, chose some distant market and
sent them by water and sail, and they ar
rived, perhaps, just in a time when our
own manufacturers at Providence, Lowell
and Lawrence were endeavoring to sell of
their accumulation of unsold goods and
pay their dividends. Near my town was
copper mine, large enough to supply man
kind, | might say, but to get the product
to Boston cost more money than to bring it
across the Atlantic. Stability in both
manufactures and agriculture seemed req
uiste to give the people content and con-
fidence | was made one of the sub-com-
mittee to continue that work of altering
the schedules and producing an orderly
protective tariff until the campaign of
Lincoln came on. Associated with me
were Henry Winter Davis of Maryland
|
We entered into the preparation of this
bill with diligence. l wrote all the bill;
the other two diligently conferred with me.
Sometimes l would go over to Baltimore
by appointment and meet Mr.. Davis; he
would have a lunch ready for us, prepared
in the good style of Maryland, and he was
a thorough gentleman in all his intercourse
"a peculiar man, yet his social tone was
nearly perfect. Had such man as that
lived in our northern communities and left
such legacy of admiration his statue
would before this be in one or more of ouT
cities"
MIR. MOrrIITs Training.
"You had some training, Mr.. Morrill,, OF
course, to undertake such labor as revis-
ing the whole tariff list?"
"As bank director l was often sent to
the large cities and knew their potent fl
nancial men. l had been engaged in all
the forms of merchantile business. Be