enacted. Important laws passed were: the Presidential Succession Act; a law increasing the size of the navy and placing it upon a modern footing; and the Interstate Commerce Act. Vice-president Hendricks died shortly after his entrance upon office. The event called attention to the fact that the Constitution did not amply provide for succession to the presidency in case both the President and the Vice-president should die or be disabled. Accordingly, Congress enacted (1886) a law which decided that in case of vacancy the cabinet members should succeed to the presidency, if eligible, in order of the establishment of their departments.

In accordance with the Constitution (Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5), Congress had already passed a law (1792) providing that in case both the President and the Vice-president should die or be removed, the President pro tempore of the Senate, and in case there was none, the Speaker of the House should act as President until the election of a new executive. This law was of doubtful constitutionality, and, moreover, did not provide for the contingency of filling the vacancy in the presidential chair in case there should be neither a President pro tempore of the Senate nor a Speaker of the House of Representatives. Under the provision of the new law (1886) the order of succession is in accordance with the order in which the various departments were created; namely,

(1) Secretary of State, 1789;

(2) Secretary of War, 1789;

(3) Secretary of the Treasury, 1789;

(4) Attorney-General, 1789;

(5) Postmaster-General, 1789;

(6) Secretary of the Navy, 1798;

(7) Secretary of the Interior, 1849;

(8) Secretary of Agriculture, 1889;

(9) Secretary of Commerce and Labor, 1903;

(10) Secretary of Labor, 1913 (Labor being then made a

separate department).

644. Improvement of the Navy. During the twenty years succeeding the Civil War nothing had been done to build up our navy. The ships in use during the Civil War had either been disposed of or had become useless through age. Our commerce needed the protection of a navy worthy of a great nation. Accordingly, Congress adopted (1883) a plan recommended by a board appointed for the purpose during the previous administration. This plan called for the building of four steel cruisers within a period of eight years at an expenditure of thirty million dollars. It was put into immediate

execution by an order of Congress. This was the beginning of our present splendid navy, which ranks third in tonnage among the navies of the world.

645. The Interstate Commerce Law. The railroads of the United States, which were doing much toward developing the resources of the country, and which had originally been built in short lines, were being rapidly consolidated into larger ones, under the control of great corporations. Much of the railroad business, in consequence, passed from intrastate to interstate commerce. The outcome was the ruin of effective competition

by discrimination of rates. The rates, on the whole, were not too high, but they were not uniform. In many instances low freight rates were granted to certain large shippers and to distant cities, while higher rates were collected from nearer cities and smaller shippers. Naturally, this discrimination built up some manufacturers and ruined others.

To remedy these abuses in railroad transportation, Congress enacted (1887) the Interstate Commerce Law, which provided: (a) that railroad charges must be just and reasonable;

(b) that there be no unjust discrimination between persons or localities;

(c) that pooling be considered illegal;

(d) that there be full publicity of rates;

(e) that an Interstate Commerce Commission of five persons be authorized to investigate and to report concerning grievances and violations of the Act.

646. Repeal of the Tenure of Office Act-Australian Ballot System. During this administration the Tenure of Office Act which served as a pretext for the impeachment of President Johnson was repealed (1887).

By the old method of conducting elections, political parties and candidates for office were allowed to furnish their own ballots. Consequently, frauds and abuses were common, and this led the public to demand a reform in methods of voting in both the state and national elections.

Accordingly, many of the states adopted the Australian ballot method, so called because it was first perfected in Australia. In the course of a few years (1888-1892) it found favor in nearly all the states.

647. The Statue of Liberty. An immense statue of bronze, representing "Liberty Enlightening the World," in the form of a woman holding aloft a torch, was unveiled on Bedloe's Island (1886) in the harbor of New York. This statue by the famous French sculptor Bartholdi is one hundred and fifty-one feet high. It rests on a stone pedestal one hundred and fifty

five feet high. The statue was erected by subscription in France, and was presented to the United States in commemoration of the Declaration of Independence.

648. Anarchist Movement. The year 1886 became noted for its many strikes and riots, the chief centers of which were St. Louis and Chicago. The greatest of these occurred in Chicago, where some forty thou

sand men left their employment. The strikers marched through the streets, and soon factories and workshops. came to a stop. Several hundred persons, led by a band of anarchists, gathered at Haymarket Square and threatened a serious riot. When the police ordered the ring-leaders to disperse, some one threw a dynamite bomb into the crowd, killing seven policemen and wounding many others. Three of the leaders were executed, two received sentences of life imprisonment, and one escaped sentence by suicide.

649. Death of Eminent

Men. This administration

THE STATUE OF LIBERTY

witnessed the death of an unusually large number of distinguished men, among whom may be mentioned:

(a) The Venerable Cardinal McCloskey (1885); (Archbishop Gibbons of Baltimore was chosen by the reigning Pontiff, Leo XIII, to succeed the deceased cardinal);

(b) ex-President Grant (1885);

(c) General G. B. McClellan (1885);

(d) Vice-president Hendricks (1885);

(e) General Winfield S. Hancock of Gettysburg fame (1885); (f) Samuel J. Tilden, prosecutor of the Tweed Ring (1886); (g) ex-President Chester A. Arthur (1886);

(h) General Sheridan of Shenandoah fame (1888).

650. The Mills Tariff Bill Is Lost. By this time a large surplus had accumulated in the Treasury. It was generally thought unwise to keep this money from circulation. President Cleveland believed that the national income should be reduced by lowering the tariff. He ascribed much of the discontent in the laboring world to the high tariff. The laboring classes, he declared, were not sharing the benefits of the high tariff with the great manufacturers. Consequently, he devoted his annual message (1887) chiefly to the recommendation of the desired tariff reduction-a fact which cost him re-election at the end of his term. In accordance with the President's proposal, Congressman Mills, a Texas Democrat, introduced a bill advocating a reduction of the protective tariff. The bill passed the House, but was lost in the Senate, and thus the tariff question was again left, as in 1884, to become a clear issue between the parties in the campaign of 1888. The Democrats stood for a tariff "for revenue only." The Republicans argued that this meant "free trade," and they demanded the protection of the American laborers against competition with laborers in European countries, where the scale of wages was much lower. The products of European "pauper labor," they thought, should not be allowed to sell for less than the products of American labor. The Democrats, on the other hand, held that the protective tariff caused high prices in the country, which offset the high wages, and that the profits arising in the protected industries were not fairly divided between the manufacturer and his workmen.

651. The Campaign of 1888. The Democrats in their convention at St. Louis nominated Grover Cleveland for re-elec