motions of finding out what it was. I am credibly informed that the
government of the United States requested several foreign governments,
among others the government of Germany, to supply it with as reliable
figures as possible concerning the cost of producing certain articles
corresponding with those produced in the United States. The German
government put the matter into the hands of certain of her manufacturers,
who sent in just as complete answers as they could procure from their
books. The information reached our government during the course of the
debate on the Payne-Aldrich Bill and was transmitted,--for the bill by
that time had reached the Senate,--to the Finance Committee of the Senate.
But I am told,--and I have no reason to doubt it,--that it never came out
of the pigeonholes of the committee. I don't know, and that committee
doesn't know, what the information it contained was. When Mr. Aldrich was
asked about it, he first said it was not an official report from the
German government. Afterward he intimated that it was an impudent attempt
on the part of the German government to interfere with tariff legislation
in the United States. But he never said what the cost of production
disclosed by it was. If he had, it is more than likely that some of the
schedules would have been shown to be entirely unjustifiable.

Such instances show you just where the centre of gravity is,--and it is a
matter of gravity indeed, for it is a very grave matter! It lay during the
last Congress in the one person who was the accomplished intermediary
between the expert lobbyists and the legislation of Congress. I am not
saying this in derogation of the character of Mr. Aldrich. It is no
concern of mine what kind of man Mr. Aldrich is; now, particularly, when
he has retired from public life, is it a matter of indifference. The point
is that he, because of his long experience, his long handling of these
delicate and private matters, was the usual and natural instrument by
which the Congress of the United States informed itself, not as to the