had not previously been published, ought to be compiled and published at regular intervals. Both these improvements in the work of the Association were at once introduced and have been continued to the present time. The annual report appears usually in the spring of each year. The directory regularly appears every two years. The weekly Bulletin of the Association was also enlarged and it has ever since been an active and influential advocate of the protective policy. Mr. Swank has been the editor of all the publications mentioned.
The work of the Association in behalf of the protective policy and in behalf of adequate duties on iron and steel has always received the earnest and active attention of its officers, and into this work Mr. Swank entered with zeal and enthusiasm. The friends of protection in Congress have relied upon him for accurate information whenever a tariff bill was under consideration. In addition to the discussion of the tariff question which he soon made a leading feature of the Bulletin, he presented in his annual report for 1876 a carefully prepared history of the industrial policies of Great Britain and the United States, and in 1877 he issued "Hold the Fort," the first of a series of about one hundred tariff tracts which have been written of compiled by hm and of which many millions have been printed and gratuitously and systematically distributed by the American Iron and Steel Association.
The editor of The Protectionist, a magazine published by the Home Market Club of Boston, recently said:
"To become a recognized authority, so that one's statistics and statements of fact are accepted the world over as correct, is to achieve a high success in life. To be recognized as not only a trustworthy statistician, but also as a wise counsellor, an economist, a historian and an adviser of statesmen, is indeed to accomplish far more than enters into the record of the average author or public man. This is what can be truthfully said of Mr. James M. Swank of Philadelphia, the author of 'Iron in All Ages' and for many years the secretary of the American Iron and Steel Association and author of its annual statistical reports. While he has dealt mostly with the facts of but one branch of production, it is the industry which all recognize as the keystone of others and as the barometer of prosperity or adversity. Hence Mr. Swank's statistics and opinions have always been of great value to men engaged in other industries and to economists everywhere. To gather and report them has involved the most tireless industry and the exercise of expert knowledge; and the work has also implied as a prerequisite the highest confidence
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