Capital no longer hesitated to embark in manufacturing, confident as it was that the nation would protect it as long as necessary.  Years after the war, demands for a reduction of the tariff arose and it was my lot to be drawn into the controversy.  It was often charged that bribery of Congressmen by manufacturers was common.  So far as I know there was no foundation for this.  Certainly the manufacturers never raised any sums beyond those needed to maintain the Iron and Steel Association, a matter of a few thousand dollars per year.  They did, however, subscribe freely to a campaign when the issue was Protection versus Free Trade.

The duties upon steel were successively reduced, with my cordial support, until the twenty-eight dollars duty on rails became only one fourth or seven dollars per ton. [To-day (1911) the duty is only about one half of that, and even that should go in the next revision.] The effort of President Cleveland to pass a more drastic new tariff was interesting.  It cut too deep in many places and its passage would have injured more than one manufacture.  I was called to Washington, and tried to modify and, as I believe, improve, the Wilson Bill.  Senator Gorman, Democratic leader of the Senate, Governor Flower of New York, and a number of the ablest Democrats were as sound protectionists in moderation as I was.  Several of these were disposed to oppose the Wilson Bill as being unnecessarily severe and certain to cripple some of our domestic industries.  Senator Gorman said to me he wished as little as I did to injure any home producer, and he thought his colleagues had confidence in and would be guided by me as to iron and steel rates, provided that large reductions were made and that the Republican Senators would stand unitedly for a bill of that character.  I remember his words, “I can afford to fight the President and beat him, but I can’t afford to fight him and be beaten.”

Governor Flower shared these views.  There was little trouble in getting our party to agree to the large reductions I proposed.  The Wilson-Gorman Tariff Bill was adopted.  Meeting Senator Gorman later, he explained that he had to give way on cotton ties to secure several Southern Senators.  Cotton ties had to be free.  So tariff legislation goes.

I was not sufficiently prominent in manufacturing to take part in getting the tariff established immediately after the war, so it happened that my part has always been to favor reduction of duties, opposing extremes—­the unreasonable protectionists who consider the higher the duties the better and declaim against any reduction, and the other extremists who denounce all duties and would adopt unrestrained free trade.

We could now (1907) abolish all duties upon steel and iron without injury, essential as these duties were at the beginning.  Europe has not much surplus production, so that should prices rise exorbitantly here only a small amount could be drawn from there and this would instantly raise prices in Europe, so that our home manufacturers could not be seriously affected.  Free trade would only tend to prevent exorbitant prices here for a time when the demand was excessive.  Home iron and steel manufacturers have nothing to fear from free trade. [I recently (1910) stated this in evidence before the Tariff Commission at Washington.]