When
      Boss Matt Quay of
      Pennsylvania
      heard that Harrison
      ascribed his
      narrow victory to
      Providence, Quay
      exclaimed that
      Harrison  would
      never know "how
      close a number of
      men were
      compelled to 
      approach... the
      penitentiary to
      make him
      President." 

         Harrison
      was proud of the
      vigorous foreign
      policy which he
      helped shape.
      The first Pan
      American
      Congress met in
      Washington in
      1889, establishing an
      information center
      which later
      became the PanAmerican   Union.At the end of his
      administration
      Harrison submitted 
      to the Senate a treaty to
      annex Hawaii; to
      his disappointment,                President Cleveland later
      withdrew it. 
 

      Substantial appropriation      bills were signed by
Harrison for improvements,
      naval expansion,
      and subsidies for
      steamship lines. 
        For the
      first time except in
      war, Congress
      appropriated a
      billions dollars.
      When critics
      attacked "the
      billion-dollar
      Congress,"
      Speaker 
       Thomas
      B. Reed replied,
      "This is a
      billion-dollar
      country." President

        Harrison
      also signed the
      Sherman Anti-Trust
      Act "to protect
      trade and
      commerce
      against unlawful
      restraints and
      monopolies," the
      first Federal
      act attempting to
      regulate trusts. 

         The most
      perplexing
      domestic problem
      Harrison faced was
      the tariff issue. The
      high tariff rates in
      effect had
      created a surplus
      of money  in the
      Treasury. Low-tariff
      advocates argued
      that the surplus
      was hurting
      business.
      Republican leaders
      in Congress
      successfully met 
      the challenge.
      Representative
      William McKinley
      and Senator
      Nelson W.
      Aldrich framed a
      still higher tariff bill;
      some rates were 
      intentionally
      prohibitive. 

       Harrison
      tried to make the
      tariff more
      acceptable by
      writing in reciprocity
      provisions. To cope
      with the Treasury
      surplus, the tariff was
      removed from
      imported raw
      sugar; sugar
      growers within the United
      States were given
      two cents a pound
      bounty on their production. 

       Long before the end of
      the Harrison
      Administration, the
      Treasury  surplus
      had evaporated,
      and prosperity
      seemed about to
      disappear as well.
      Congressional
      elections in 1890
      went stingingly
      against the Republicans,   and party leaders decided to
      abandon President Harrison
      although he had
      cooperated with
      Congress on party  legislation.
      Nevertheless, his
      party renominated
      him in 1892, but he 
       was defeated by
      Cleveland. 

         After he
      left office, Harrison
      returned to
      Indianapolis, and
      married the
      widowed Mrs.
      Mary Dimmick in
      1896. A dignified
      elder statesman, he
        died in
       1901.President on
          the eighth ballot at
            the 1888
          Republican
         Convention, 
         Benjamin
      Harrison did one of the 
      first "front-porch"
      campaigns, giving 
        short speeches to
       delegations that 
     visited
      him in Indianapolis.
        As he was only 
       5 feet, 6 inches tall,
      Democrats called 
      him "Little Ben"; Republicans
       replied that he was
         big enough to
      wear the hat of his grandfather, "Old
         Tippecanoe."go to harrison 2....