Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1909-06-01
AMERICAN TARIFF LAWS
AUTHORS OF TARIFF BILLS
BY FREDERIC j. HAsKIN.

ways and means committee. The Fill
more bill got the right of way, although
Saltonstall made a hard fight to have his
measure substituted. Secretary Forward,
of the treasury department, had assisted
in writing the Fillmore bill Forward
was a Pennsylvania by birth, and had
previously served in congress.
Robert ]. Walker was the, author OF
the tariff of 1876. He was constructive
statesman, and was the father of the
warehouse system and the interior de-
partment. He refused the Democratic
nomination for vice president in 1874. and
was made secretary Of the treasury In
1885, by President Polk. His report on
manufactures, written from the low tar
If standpoint, is considered one of the
tariff classics.
The tariff act of 1857 was written by
Senator R. NJ. T. Hunter, of Virginia 1t
was passed as a substitute for the senate
substitute to the house bill, and was
signed by the president. Hunter had
served in the house for many years, and
was its speaker for one congress. He af-
terward became a United States sena-
tor. In 1862 he was elected a member of
the Confederate States senate, and was a
member of the peace commission which
met in Hampton Roads in 1866.
49,
Justin S. Morrill, who wrote the tariff
that bears his name, was a Vermonter,
and was chairman of the ways and means
committee for many years. After serving
twelve years in the house he was prornot-
ed to the senate in 1867, and remained
there until his death in December, 1898,
having served more than forty-four years
in succession in the congress of the Unit
ed States, which is close to, II not the
record length of service. Morrill, also had
charge of the war tariff acts in the house.
He was thus the author Of more tariff
measures than any other man in the his
tory of congress.
William r. Morrison wrote two tariff
bills. but neither of them passed the
house. He seemed to prefer to be the
power behind the throne rather than
wielder Of the sceptre, and led the
movement to make Kerr, Of Indiana, the
first Democratic speaker after the civil
war. Again in 1888 he led the forces which
put Carlisle in the speakers chair. In
both instances he was made chairman
of ways and means.
Roger Q. Mills is now the only living
man who wrote a tariff bill that was
considered by both the senate and house.
All of the others have been dead for
some years. In recent times there seems
to be a singular fatality attaching TO the
authors of tariff measures. William Nc
Kinley died within a decade after tho
passage of the Mckinley law, and William
L. Wilson lived no longer. Nelson Dingley
lived only a few years after the meas
ure which bore his name became the law
of the land Today we have only one
ex-president and one author of historic
tariff bill living. Mills went to the SEN
ate after leaving the house, and helped
to frame the senate amendments to the
Wilson bill. He is still living in Texas
After Mills came Mckinley, to whom the
world gives the credit Of having written
the Mckinley bill AS a matter of fact,
the bill was largely a redraft of the SEN
ate substitute for the Mills bill, and Sem
ator Nelson W. Aldrich did more to
frame that measure than any other man.
Mr.. Mckinley was perhaps the only au-
thor of a tariff bill who has written a
book on the tariff.
William L. Wilson was probably the
most scholarly man who ever wrote an
American tariff law. At the time of his
election to the house of representatives
he was president of the University of
West Virginia. He was assigned to the
position of chairman of the committee
on ways and means over the heads of all
those who had been members of that
committee. This was done by Speaker
Crisp as compromise and a recognition
Of the Cleveland Democracy in the house.
Mr.. Wilson's after career is familiar his
tory. He left university presidency to
take up the duties of public life, and
Immediately after laying down those du-
ties was elected president of the historic
Washington and Lee university, and died
in this position.
Nelson Dingley, owner and editor of the
Lewiston, Maine. Journal, was perhaps
the only editor of daily paper who ever
drafted a tariff law. Dingley was not a
man Of surprising abality, but he had a
wonderful capacity for hard study. Not
an orator. but rather possessing a weak
and not too pleasant voice; not of pre-
possessing personal appearance, but slight
and weak-looking. he knew that the only
way to succeed in congress was to know
what there was to know concerning sub
jects of legislation. A colleague who
boarded at the same hotel says of him
that he never visited Nelson DingIey's
room that he did not find him ensconeed
IN easy chair with books ard docu-
merts surrounding him, and a pad and
pencil in his hand $3.50
Pig Iron Kelly. Samuel ]. Randan. FER
nando Wood. and many others mig. i -
included in the list or those VINO ea~t
written tariff bills. To write such a bill
requires immense thought, great discre-
ton, scrupulous integrity and abundant
lack of seIhshness. Most of those who
have prepared the tariff measures--suc-
cessful and unsuccessful-have possessed
those qualities 1909, by
Frederic J. Haskin.)