THE GREAT COMPROMISE.

The struggle over the permanent location of the capital was a long one. Begun at the first session of the General Assembly of the State, it was waged incessantly for a period of eleven years. It generated a feel:ng of sectional jealousy so strong that from the beginning it was evident that the question could be settled only by a compromise. Accordingly the first formal proposal for the removal of the capital farther west contemplated the establishment of a State University at Iowa City. This compromise was reluctantly entertained by the people of Iowa City-they insisted on holding the capital. But when, in the course of time, they saw that the argument in favor of central location would ultimately prevail, they acquiesced and petitioned the General Assemv for the State University. Thereupon two acts were passed by the General Assembly in February, 1847, one providing for organization of the State University deDumb" was established at Iowa City in acthe relocation of the capital, and the other

City. The location of the capital in Jaspe County, however, was disapproved, and the organization of the State University delayed.

When the third constitutioral convention assembled at Iowa City in January, 1857, Des Moines had already been selected as the site for the capitol and the State University had been put into actual operation at Iowa City. To make the arrangement more binding the convention incorporated this great compromise into the new constitution:

"The Seat of Government is hereby permanently established, as now fixed by law, at the City of Des Moines, in the County of Polk; and the State University at Iowa City in the County of Johnson."

In the fall of 1857 the capital was removed to Des Moines. The archives of the State were all transported overland; for the Mississippi & Missouri Railroad Company had not yet extended their road beyond Iowa City. The snows of the winter of 1857-58 had begun to fall when the public. safe,. the last article to be removed, was loaded on two bobsleds and drawn by ten yoke of oxen from the old capitol to the

new.

William Boyd Allison, senior Senator from Iowa, was born on a farm near Ashland, Ohio, March 2, 1829. He removed to Iowa in February, 1857, making his home in the city of Dubuque, where he has continually resided until the present time. He is of Scotch-Irish descent, not only on his father's side, but also on his mother's. His ancestors were early settlers of Pennsylvania, his father removing from there in 1823 to Ohio, where he purchased a tract of unimproved land in what was then Wayne County, and commenced the making of a farm by clearing away the heavy timber which spread over that entire section. Mr. Allison's early education was acquired at a country school in the neighborhood of his home. The particular school which he attended had the good fortune to have an excellent teacher, who had the faculty of instilling into the minds of his pupils the idea that knowledge is power, and hat this could only be secured by careful study. At the age of 16 he left his home on the farm to attend an academy at Wooster, then the county seat of Wayne County. After this he spent a year at Alleghany College in Meadeville, Pennsylvania, and another year at Western Reserve College, then at Hudson, Ohio. Returning to Wooster he entered the office of Hemphill & Turner as a student of law, spending a portion of his time in the office of the auditor of that county, thus earning a portion of his expenses. After reading law two years at Wooster he removed to Ashland, which had then become the county seat of a new county established some years before, and which was nearer his father's home than Wooster. He continued the practice of law at Ashland until the spring of 1857, when he removed to Dubuque, Iowa, where an older brother had preceded him.

The father of Mr. Allison took an active interest in the politics of the period. He was Justice of the Peace for the township continuously for more than twenty years, and at that time there were many contested neighborhood cases brought before these minor courts, and the young man thereby had an opportunity of hearing many discussions of the law. His father was a Whig in politics and a great admirer and supporter of Henry Clay, voting for him in 1824 and again in 1844. Mr. Allison took an active part in the local politics of Ashland county after his removal there and was a delegate from that county to the State convention of 1855, presided over by the late Senator Sherman, and was made one of the secretaries of the convention. This convention nominated Salmon P. Chase for governor. In 1856 he took an active part locally in the campaign of General John C. Fremont for President, and was placed upon the ticket for the position of district attorney. The county being Democratic, he failed to secure an election. During his resi

dence at Ashland he made the acquaintance of Hon. Samuel J. Kirkwood, who was a practitioner at the bar there, residing at Mansfield, only fourteen miles distant. Mr. Kirkwood came to Iowa in 1854, three years before the removal of Mr. Allison. Many of the younger men of Ohio removed to Iowa about this time, and. no doubt many of them were influenced, as was Mr. Allison, by the fact that Mr. Kirkwood, who was a prominent man in Ohio, had changed his residence to this new and growing State.

Mr. Allison was a delegate to the convention of 1859 which nominated Mr. Kirkwood for Governor. He was also a delegate to the Republican national convention of 1860 at Chicago which nominated Abraham Lincoln, and was one of the secretaries of that convention.

In the beginning of the Civil War Governor Kirkwood made him a member of his staff and authorized him to raise regiments in northern Iowa and to equip them for service in the field. He had charge of the organization of two regiments in 1861 and two additional regiments in 1862, all these regiments having their rendezvous in a camp established at Dubuque. In the summer of 1862 he was nominated by the Republicans at West Union, Iowa, to represent the old Third district in Congress, and was elected.

During the year 1862 several regiments were organized in different portions of the State, and Mr. Allison became satisfied that it would be a wise thing to allow the soldiers in the field and in camp to vote at the coming election, believing that if this was not done Iowa would lose at least two of her six Republican members of Congress. He presented his views to Governor Kirkwood, and asked him to call a special session of the Legislature to make provisions to that end. The Governor, while expressing himself as favorable to the plan, hesitated on account of the additional expense of an extra session, and he did not wish to make the call unless it was approved by Republican State leaders generally. He requested Mr Allison to go to Burlington and consult with the late Senator Grimes, and in the meantime he himself consulted with others. Senator Grimes unhesitatingly advised an extra session and wrote a note to the Governor to that effect, which was delivered to the Governor in person by Mr. Allison. The next day the special session was called and a law was passed providing for taking the vote of soldiers in the field. The lead taken by Iowa in this respect was followed by many states.

His service in the House of Representatives began March 4th, 1863. He was three times reelected, serving in that body until March 4th. 1871. He was not a candidate for re-election in 1870. At the beginning of his second term in the House he was placed on the Committee on Ways and Means, which then had charge of all

financial subjects relating to taxation, tariff, loans, currency and the standard of money, anu all questions incident thereto.

In 1872 he was elected to the United States Senate to succeed Senator Harlan. He has been continuously a member of that body since that time, and his fifth term will expire March 4th, 1903. He took his seat in the Senate March 4th, 1873, and was assigned to the Committee on Appropriations, the most important committee of the Senate. He was also placed on the Committee on Indian Affairs, then as now an important committee, taking rank next to the chairman, and became chairman of that committee in 1875, which chairmanship he held until made chairman of the Committee on Appropriations in 1881. He has remained chairman of this latter committee up to the present time, except for two years, when the Democrats had control of the Senate.

His first important service began almost immediately after the opening of the session of December, 1873. There had been serious complaints respecting the government of the District o' Columbia, as organized under the law of 1871. A joint committee of investigation was appointed to examine and make report, with full power to send for persons and papers, examine witnesses under oath, etc. It began its labors in the spring of 1874 and continued in session day by day during the long session of Congress which followed. Senator Allison became chairman of this committee, and at the end of the investigation made an elaborate report, which proposed to abolish the then existing District government and Board of Public Works, and provided for a complete settlement of all accounts and debts of the District government up to the time of the passage of the proposed law, and the conversion of the District debt into fifty-year bonds bearing .0365 per cent

interest, interest and principal to be paid proportionately from the United States Treasury and from the taxes levied on property in the District. It provided for a temporary government, which should have charge of all the affairs of the District, and should consist of three Commissioners, one of whom should be an engineer of the army, not below the rank of major. This government was to continue until Congress by law should provide for a permanent government for the District. A bill embodying these provisions was introduced by the joint committee and became a law without material amendment. This temporary form of government was made permanent by an act passed in 1878, and from 1874 to the present time this has constiuted the government of the District of Columbia, and has been so satisfactory that no agitation has at any time been made for a change.

In March, 1877, he was placed on the Finance Committee, and has been a member of that committee since that time. He was entitled to the chairmanship of that committee in March, 1899, by reason of his seniority on the Committee, but it seemed wiser for him to continue as head of the Committee on Appropriations, where he had so long served as chairman. He retains his membership on the Finance Committee, being next in rank to the chairman.

During his service on the Committee on Ways and Means in the House many important measures were passed relating to the refunding of the debt, reduction of internal taxation, revision of the tariff, etc. Upon all questions arising in the discussion of these subjects he took an active part. During the whole period of his service in the House the country was upon a paper standard, which resulted in the practical banishment of gold and silver from circulation, and because of the large volume of paper money and the large debt, funded and unfunded, it was not practicable during his service in that body to deal with the question of the restoration of specie payments. After he left the House and before he became a member of the Senate, a law was passed in January, 1873, revising the min. laws, which had been under discussion for some years. Before that time, although we had been on a paper standard from 1862, the law remained providing for the free and unlimited coinage of both gold and silver at the ratio of 16 to 1. In revising the mint laws these coinage provisions were repealed and gold alone was made the standard of money and the unit of value for all transactions, the mints were closed to the free and unlimited coinage of silver and that metal was relegated to a limited coinage on government account as fractional silver only, being made legal tender to the extent of five dollars. Later on it was claimed that the demonetization of silver, as it was called, was a mistake and not so intended by those who voted for the Act of 1873.

In the Congressional campaign of 1874 it was strongly urged by Republicans and eastern Democrats that the time had come for a restoration of our currency to a specie basis and hat steps should at once be taken to that end. The Democrats of the south and west, generally, took an opposite view, contending that the greenback circulation was a valuable circulation and there

was no necessity for a return to specie payments. In that election the Democrats, for the first time since 1861, secured a majority in the House of the next succeeding Congress. After this election the leading Republicans in both Houses decided that it was of the utmost importance to pass a law looking to the restoration of specie payments before the new Congress should assemble. The Republicans of the Senate held a caucus and selected a committee of eleven to prepare a bill. This committee consisted largely of the then older members of the Senate, but Senator Allison was made a member of it and participated actively in its deliberations. This committee unanimously reported a bill to the Senatorial caucus, which was unanimously agreed to by the caucus. It was reported to the Senate from the Finance Committee, passed the Senate without amendment, passed the House without amendment, and became a law with the signature of President Grant. This law has since been known as the Resumption Act of 1875. During the debate on this bill in the two Houses no question was raised as respects the Act of 1873 before alluded to, but the new Congress, which came in in December, 1875, criticised the act of 1873 on account of the change regarding silver coinage, and bills were introduced for the restoration of silver as it had stood in our statutes before 1873. In the Presidential election which followed in 1876 it was strongly urged in some portions of the country that silver should be restored to free coinage. Following this election there was a wide agitation for this restoration, and the House Coinage Committee favorably reported a bill providing for free silver coinage. When the new House assembled in October, 1877, on motion of Mr. Bland the rules were suspended and the House passed, by a vote of 163 to 34 a measure for the free coinage of silver, although silver was depreciated 10 or 11 per cent as compared with gold, by reason of the abandonment of the free coinage of silver by the Latin Union states in Europe and by Germany.

Senator Allison's first important service on the Finance Committee related to this subject, He had been a member of the committee but a few months when, in November, 1877, this bill, then called the Bland Bill, came to the Senate from the House, and was referred to the Finance Committee. The committee then consisted of nine members. Four of them were in favor of the Bland Bill, and four others were in favor of the single gold standard as established by the Mint Act of 1873. Senator Allison believed then that because of the depreciation of silver as compared with gold, it would be impossible to maintain the parity of the coins of the two metals at the rati proposed, which had been the statutory ratio since 183, except through an international agreement to be made by all the leading commercial na tions of the world, and if that were not done the opening of our mints then to the free coinage of silver, as proposed by the House, would result in the silver standard in this country. Therefore, he voted with the four members who were for the gold standard and against the House proposition, thus defeating the free coinage of silver in the committee. He then offered two amendments to the bill, one of which proposed the coinage of a limited quantity of silver each month on govern

ment account, thereby maintaining the standard as established in 1873, but giving to the United States a supply of silver for circulation in our own country to be maintained at the standard of gold. The other amendment proposed that the nations of Europe be invited to a conference with a view to re-establish among the commercial nations of the world the use of silver upon a ratio of equivalence to be agreed upon, with the free mintage of both metals in all these countries at such ratio. The bill, with these two amendments, was favorably reported to the Senate by a majority of the committee and placed in charge of Senator Allison in the Senate, which was followed by a long and interesting debate upon the money standard. The result of the discussion was the adoption of the amendments by the Senate by more than a two-thirds majority, and the passage of the bill thus amended by a like majority, and when the bill was returned to the House the bill as amended was accepted by that body. It was vetoed by President Hayes. It was passed over the veto by a two-thirds majority in both Houses and became a law, resulting in the coinage of about 370 million silver dollars before it was changed by the Act of 1890. In the debates on this bill Senator Allison took a leading part, making the closing speech in the Senate in behalf of the amendments and the bill, which speech is well worth perusal by all who are interested in the money standard. His contention at that time has been fully vindicated by the history of these two metals from that time until now, and in all the discussions which nave taken place and in all the plans and projects respecting our money standard during these intervening years, he has consistently adhered to the position he took at the outset, and has constantly maintained that it was for the interest of the United States to maintain the gold standard upon which we resumed specie payments in 1879, until by international agreement silver and gold could be placed upon a parity in general use throughout the world by the adoption of a common ratio.

The policy advocated by him respecting an international agreement and incorporated in the legislation of 1878 was generally accepted by the people of the United States, both the Democratic and Republican parties in their national platforms having declared explicitly in favor of it as the only method of securing the universal circulation of both gold and silver as money metals, locally and internationally. The first international conference was held in 1878. This failed, and Congress unanimously provided for another conference to be held in 1881, which also failed. At both these conferences the United States was represented by able commissioners; at the latter one especially, the three members being Hon. W. M. Evarts of New York, and Senators Thurman of Ohio and Howe of Wisconsin. Nothwithstanding these failures, this government still adhered to the policy, and in 1892 Congress made provision for another international conference, which met at Brussels in November, 1892. The United States was represented by five Commissioner, chosen by President Harrision, who selected Senator Allison as the chairman on behalf of this country. This conference, like the others, failed to adopt any plan, but made progress to

ward an agreement beyond what had hitherto been made. This subject then seemed important, not only to the United States, but to all the nations as well, and its importance has only diminished by reason of the enormous production of gold during the last five or six years. So it will be seen that his familiarity with this subject and his ability to deal with it was recognized by the President and Congress, as well as generally throughout the country.

The Act of 1890, known as the Sherman Act, greatly increased the government purchases of silver and provided that Treasury notes, made a full legal tender, should be issued for circulation to the amount of the cost of the silver bullion purchased, and authorized the coinage of the silver from time to time to meet the redemption of these notes. Senator Allison objected to this bill on the ground that it would be impracticable to sell on a depreciating market the silver thus purchased, and although these notes were nominally redeemable in silver they were precisely the same kind of notes as the greenbacks, which were constantly redeemed in gold, and that these Treasury notes must necessarily be redeemed in gold if the gold standard was to be maintained; that, as they gradually accumulated, the reserve for their redemption and of the greenbacks would have to be largely increased, and that finally the whole system would fail and result in the silver standard. But he was overruled in this opinion by most of the leaders of the Senate and House, and when this bill was finally agreed to as a compromise, although it did not meet his approval, he voted for it, as did all the Republicans in both Houses. His fear was soon realized in part, and in 1893 the law was repealed soar as it related to continued purchases of silver, and by that repeal the unavoidable result of a silver standard of money, which otherwise would have followed its continuance on the statute books, was averted. The experience of the two or three years following this repeal clearly indicated that the provisions for the redemption of greenbacks and Treasury notes were inadequate to at all times maintain their convertibility into gold coin, and various plans were suggested to strengthen e laws providing for the gold standard and for the maintenance of all forms of money at that standard. This discussion resulted in the pledge made by the Republican party in 1896 in its national platform, and in the subsequent authorization of a special committee in the House and of the Finance Committee in the Senate to formulate laws which would accomplish these ends. Senator Allison took a prominent part in the preparation of these measures, which resulted in the passage of what is known as the Currency Act of March 14th, 1900, which provides for a permanent reserve sufficient to make certain the convertibility, directly or indirectly, of all forms of money in circulation into gold at the will of the holder. This law also provided for the refunding of the great body of the public debt, by exchanging for the three, four and five per cent coin bonds outstanding, a gold bond bearing two per cent interest, and up to the time of writing this sketch more than one-half of all outstanding bonds have been so converted-a financial operation unparalleled in the history of the world, and showing that the credit of the United States is

stronger and better than that of any other nation. Therefore, it may be said that in all the important legislation on this subject during his service in Congress Senator Allison has borne a conspicuous part, and his general views are largely embodied in the legislation.

He has also had a large part in shaping the tariff laws from 1877 to the present time, having been an active participant as a member of the Finance Committee in the frequent revisions of the tariff since that time. The Tariff Commission created by Congress in May, 1882, made its report in December of the same year, and following this report the House considered a bill revising the rates of duty. The Senate Committee on Finance in the meantime took up the internal revenue bill, which passed the House during the preceding session, and attached to that bill an amendment revising the whole tariff system substantially in accord with the report of the Tariff Commission, but making many changes in the details of that report. The bill as amended passed the Senate after considerable debate near the close of the session. When it reached the House it led to an acrimonious debate upon the privileges of the two Houses, but a conference was finally agreed upon between the two Houses, and the bill became a law on the day of final adjournment. Senator Allison was a member of the sub-committee of the Finance Committee which prepared this revision and was a member of the conference on the part o the Senate.

In 1885, after several Secretaries of the Treasury had called the attention of Congress to the imperfections in the administration of the custom laws and the administative features of those laws, the Senate authorized the Finance Committee to investigate the subject. The chairman named a sub-committee of three for this purpose, and Senator Allison became chairman of this subcommittee. The committee labored on the subject for more than two years, making a thorough personal examination of the details of administration as disclosed in the New York, Boston and other custom houses. Senator Allison reported from the committee a bill making a complete revision of the methods of collecting the duties and creating new machinery for the clasification and appraisement of imports. It was accompanied by an elaborate printed report collating all the laws on that subject which had been ena ted since the foundation of the government up to that time. This bill passed the Senate in 1888. It was not considered in the House. When the Mills tariff bill came to the Senate this bill was attached to it as an amendment, but failed of enactment with the Mills bill. This bill,however, was introduced by Mr. McKinley in the House in December, 1889, and became a law substantially as it passed the Senate about a year before. Under this law all our customs collections are now made, no material amendments having since been made to it.

The House passed in 1888, at an early stage of the session, a bill providing for a revision of tariff duties on the lines of the Democratic contention of a tariff for revenue only, known as the Mills Bill. It was thoroughly considered by the Finance Committee in the Senate, first by a subcommittee of which Senator Allison was chairman.