Like most Democrats, “Sunset” Cox favored low tariffs. One day he delighted his colleagues by a humorous attack on William “Pig-Iron” Kelley of Pennsylvania, the House’s leading champion of protective tariffs. To tease Kelley, Cox proposed a resolution against free sunshine: “Resolved, that all windows, skylights, inside and outside shutters, curtains, and blinds shall be permanently closed, as also all openings, holes, chinks, clefts, and fissures through which the light and heat of the sun have been allowed to enter houses to the prejudice and injury of meritorious miners and dealers in gas-coal to protect domestic industry.”
His main argument for the proposal: “The sun is a foreigner. He comes from abroad…”
Source:
Boller, Paul F. “On the Floor.” Congressional Anecdotes. New York: Oxford UP, 1991. 198-99. Print.
Original Source Listed:
Ida Tarbell, The Tariff in Our Times (New York, 1912), 66.
David Lindsey, ”Sunset” Cox: Irrepressible Democrat (Detroit, 1959), 114-15.
Further Reading:
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