His mother died early in the boy's life, and his father left the farm at Prairie du Long, remarried, and took over the management of the inn at Waterloo, Ill.
There the boy absorbed politics as he grew, for the tavern was the community center and his father was active in local politics, serving as justice of the peace, sheriff, state assemblyman, and county judge.
When he returned to Illinois he spent two years in the preparatory department of McKendree College and in 1852 settled down in Waterloo as circuit court clerk.
- Sept. 29, 1909) .
Morrison, William Ralls, (Sept. 14, 1824?
He was wounded while leading an attack at Fort Donelson but recuperated sufficiently to take part in the move on Corinth.
He did not distinguish himself at Washington, 1863-65, and failed of reëlection by seventy-five votes.
In 1876 he stated his principles: "Protection other than that incidental to revenue, is spoliation, because it takes the earnings of the labor of one person or class of persons and gives these earnings to other persons" (Congressional Record, 44 Cong. , 1 Sess. , p. 3313).
His most noted proposal was that of 1884 providing for a general horizontal tariff reduction of 20 per cent, which attached to him the nickname of "Horizontal Bill. "
Opponents assailed the measure as unscientific, an accusation he himself admitted, but the attacks were impelled by hatred of reduction rather than by abhorrence of unscientific procedure.
Although a real reform seems to have been impossible, this attempt failed by only five votes.
He was a candidate for senator in 1885, when he and John A. Logan fought one of the most spectacular elections in Illinois history.
For almost five months the legislature balloted evenly on the two candidates before a well-planned ruse gave Logan the necessary extra vote.
Morrison was several times a prominent possibility for the presidential nomination, notably in 1892 and in 1896.
Perhaps the decisive obstacle preventing his obtaining this honor was his refusal to barter his bi-metallism principles.
Tenacity of ideals was both his strength and his weakness politically.
Defeated in the 1886 election by secret machinations of Pennsylvania manufacturers and the Knights of Labor, he was appointed, in 1887, by Cleveland to the new Interstate Commerce Commission, of which Thomas McIntyre Cooley [q. v. ] was chairman.
When a series of court decisions, based on defects in the act of 1887, temporarily robbed the commission of real power, he could not have felt disappointed that McKinley refused to reappoint him in 1897.
He retired to his home in Waterloo, Ill. , and lived quietly until his death.
[Collection of newspaper clippings and some correspondence in the possession of relatives at Waterloo, Ill. ; F. D. Scott, "The Political Career of Wm. R. Morrison, " Ill.
Soc.
Trans. , no. 33 (1926); J. M. Palmer, Bench and Bar in Ill. (1899), vol.
II; Who's Who in America, 1908-09; Report of Adjutant-General of .
Ill. (1867), vol.
II; Ill.
From 1854 to 1860 he was a member of the state legislature as a Douglas Democrat and was chosen speaker in his third term.
Except for a season in the state legislature in 1871, he did not appear in politics again until 1872, when, in spite of his tariff-reform campaign, a Republican district sent him to Congress and kept him there from 1873 to 1887.
They had one child who also died in infancy.
His parents, John and Ann (Ralls) Morrison, of Anglo-Saxon ancestry, were natives of southern Illinois, where he was born near the present town of Waterloo.
His parents, John and Ann (Ralls) Morrison, of Anglo-Saxon ancestry, were natives of southern Illinois, where he was born near the present town of Waterloo.
In that year he was married to Mary Jane Drury, who bore him two sons both of whom died young.
After her death he was married, in 1857, to her half-sister, Eleanora Horine, who proved an able and industrious assistant in all his political undertakings.
