On December 3, 1889, Delano was elected president of the National Wool Growers Association, a lobbying group organized to advocate for tariff protection of the national wool industry. The association had been formed in 1865, and became more active in the 1880s as a response to the decline in domestic wool production; wool growers faced increasing overseas competition and had gone from 50 million sheep producing wool in 1883 to 40 million in 1888.
