Roger Q . Mills Roger Quarles Mills ( March 30 , 1832September 2 , 1911 ) was a United States lawyer and politician . During the American Civil War , he served as an officer in the Confederate States Army . Afterwards he served in the United States Congress , first as a representative , and later as a senator . Background . Born in Todd County , Kentucky , he attended the common schools and moved to Texas in 1849 . There he studied law , passed the bar , and began practicing in Corsicana at the age of 20 , after the Texas legislature made an exception to the usual age requirement . He was a member of the Texas House of Representatives from 1859 until 1860 , when he enlisted in the Confederate States Army . He served throughout the Civil War and took part as a private in the Battle of Wilson ' s Creek , and as a colonel commanded the Tenth Texas Infantry at Arkansas Post , Chickamauga ( where he commanded a brigade during part of the battle ) , Missionary Ridge and the Atlanta Campaign . House service . He was then elected as a Democrat to the United States House of Representatives and served from 1873 until 1892 . In 1891 Mills was a candidate in the Democratic caucus for Speaker of the U . S . House of Representatives , but was defeated by Charles F . Crisp ( 1845 – 1896 ) of Georgia . In the 1880s , when Prohibition sentiment was rising in Texas , Mills refused to make any political concessions . Reportedly , he declared in one speech , " If lightning were to strike all the drunkards , there would not be a live Prohibition party in Texas . " ( Mills claimed to have been misquoted : he had said " there would not be many [ members of the party ] left . " ) Elsewhere he was said to have vowed , " A good sluice of pine top whiskey would improve the morals of the Dallas [ Prohibition ] convention and the average Prohibitionist . " ( Mills again offered a correction : he had not used the words " average Prohibitionist , " he insisted ) . . Mills quickly became noted as one of the ablest , if hottest - tempered , debaters on the Democratic side of the House , and , as was commonly agreed , a man " possessed of the demon of work . " The reporter Frank G . Carpenter described him as true as steel and unpretentious in dress . " He is tall , straight and big chested , " he wrote in 1888 . " The distance between the top button of his high vest and the small of his back is longer than the width of the shoulders of the ordinary man , and he has a biceps which , if put into training , would knock down an ox . He is a fighter , too , and goes into this Congressional struggle with a brain trained to warfare . . . . He is a successful man , and one who inspires confidence . " Chairmanship of the Committee on Ways and Means . Mills had made the tariff his special study , and was long recognized as one of the leading authorities on the Democratic side . After the defeat of House Ways and Means Committee Chairman William Morrison in the 1886 election , Mills became the next chair of the U . S . House Committee on Ways and Means when the 50th Congress met . His selection , an historian of the tariff wrote later , " was a red rag to the high protectionists , for Mr . Mills was an out - and - out free trader . " Debate over the tariff issue had been thrust upon the United States by President Grover Cleveland in his annual December message to Congress on December 6 , 1887 . The President requested that Congress drastically reduce the tariff on many manufactured goods so as to promote trade and reduce the cost of living for ordinary United States citizens . Indeed , Chairman Mills , using the Walker Tariff of 1846 as a guideline , had been drafting a bill since September 1887 which would address several of the proposals that Cleveland had included in his December message . As it turned out , most of his work went for naught . As he later explained , " When I got to work with my brethren on the bill I found that it would not go , and I had to abandon my ad valorem tariff bill . The schoolmaster had not been sufficiently around , to bring our people back to the Democratic principle of taxation as to value . " This bill became known as the " Mills Tariff Bill of 1888 " . The Mills Bill was reported out of the Ways and Means Committee in April 1888 . The bill provided for a reduction of the duties on sugar , earthenware , glassware , plate glass , woolen goods and other articles , the substitution of ad valorem for specific duties in many cases , and the placing of lumber ( of certain kinds ) , hemp , wool , flax , borax , tin plates , salt and other articles on the free list . The bill looked like it might split the Democratic Party . Just two years previously , the high tariff wing of the Democratic Party had been able to muster 35 votes in the House . However , now the Mills Bill had become so highly partisan that when the bill was passed by the Democratic House on July 21 , 1888 , only four Democratic Congressmen voted against it . The high tariff wing of the Democratic Party was largely wiped out by the passage of the Mills Bill of 1888 . Although the Mills bill passed the House , a Republican Senate amended it heavily , and it never passed into law . Instead , it became the chief issue in the presidential campaign of 1888 . Critics warned that American manufacturers could not compete against the flood of British manufactured goods sure to flood the country , and campaign crowds marched the streets chanting , " No ! no ! no Free Trade ! " ( The tariff was not , in fact , anywhere close to being a free - trade measure ; it only offered an average reduction of seven percent , and many items were left untouched ) . " If Mills of Texas does not shut down , many other mills will have to , " a California newspaper warned . In the 1888 Presidential election , Republican Benjamin Harrison , a strong high tariff supporter lost the popular vote nation - wide to Cleveland , however , Harrison managed to narrowly win both swing states of New York and Indiana and , thus , Harrison won the presidency in the Electoral College based largely on the tariff issue . Mills was known to have aspirations to the Speakership , after the retirement of John G . Carlisle . In late 1891 , with the House returning to Democratic control , the Texas congressman put himself in the running against Georgia congressman Charles Crisp . Before the caucus met , Mills had 120 votes pledged to him , and if all of them had kept their word , he would have won ; but only 105 did so on the final thirtieth ballot , to Crisp ' s 119 . The reason , apparently , was that Mills refused to make deals . Some two dozen members wanted a guarantee of specific committee assignments , in return for their support . Mills would have none of it . Reportedly , Congressman William Springer of Illinois , who was also contending for the Speakership , offered to drop out if Mills would appoint him chair of Ways and Means , and was told gruffly to put his offer in writing . As a result , the night before the caucus voted , Springer withdrew on Crisp ' s behalf — and Crisp did make him chairman of Ways and Means , subsequently . To Congressman Tom Johnson of Cleveland , one of Mills ' s most earnest backers , the Texas congressman ' s conduct looked like political insanity . " I wish you wouldn ' t be a fool , " he burst out ; " give me two chairmanships and ask me no questions and I will elect you on the next ballot . " All he got was a shake of the head in reply . Mills ' s problems , however , were deeper than his failure as a horse - trader . For one thing , his irascibility and the regularity with which he lost his temper made many of his party friends worry that he lacked the self - control necessary in a Speaker . The party ' s job would be hard enough without what one newspaper called Mills ' s " tempestuous style . " His selection would have signaled that the Democratic party ' s main agenda would be lowering the tariff drastically ; Crisp was much less associated with tariff reform and much more closely associated with the supporters of free silver coinage — which , to most southern Democrats , ranked as the top issue by late 1891 . Among the silver Democrats , it did not help Mills to have former president Grover Cleveland ' s backing , nor among those favoring the presidential nomination of Cleveland ' s rival , Senator David Bennett Hill of New York . Hill threw his weight behind Crisp ' s candidacy , too . Mills took badly to his rejection , issuing a letter , quickly made public that the Democratic party had been hurt more than he , by his rejection , and threatening that " a large element that has been voting with us [ would ] abandon us " in the coming election , unless those who had defeated him met with rebuke by their party . Senate service . Mills was elected to the United States Senate from the State of Texas in 1892 to fill the vacant seat of John H . Reagan and continued to serve in that post until 1899 . In 1893 , when President Grover Cleveland sought repeal of the Sherman Silver - Purchase Act , Mills gave loyal support . Silver coinage was popular with both parties in Texas , and Democrats in particular felt that Mills had betrayed them ; his action probably cost him re - election in 1898 . Other friends noticed a change in him , as well . His old colleague and co - worker in tariff reform , former Congressman William L . Wilson of West Virginia wrote in his diary in 1896 , " Poor Mills , how he seems to have gone to pieces since the time when he was leading the tariff reform forces in the House , and a welcome and strong speaker on that great issue all over the country . Today he made one of the most extreme and wild jingo speeches in the Senate on the Cuban question that has marked the whole debate . Not less erratic has been his course for two years past on the financial question . " Later life . He died in Corsicana , Texas . Roger Mills County , Oklahoma took its name from Rep . Mills . References . Retrieved on 2009 - 05 - 04