NOTES
McKINLEY AND THE
TARIFF
1. The tariff has not attracted many
historians, doubtless because of its complexity
and fragmentation. Edward Stanwood, American
Tariff Controversies in the Nine-
teenth Century (New York, 1903), is a narrative account of tariff
measures from a
protectionist viewpoint. Ida M. Tarbell,
The Tariff in Our Times (New York, 1911), is
the same from a revisionist viewpoint.
Frank Taussig, The Tariff History of the United
States (New
York, 1910), is an anti-protectionist study whose often questionable gener-
alizations are the basis of most
secondary conclusions on the subject. No contemporary
scholar has studied thoroughly the
effects of protection on American industry in the late
nineteenth century. Such a work would
involve the minute examination of protected and
unprotected industries within a
carefully defined ideological framework that weighed
the many factors outside protective
legislation affecting prices, wages, business cycles,
and international trade.
2. Space forbids a recapitulation of
McKinley's biography; see Margaret Leech, In
the Days of McKinley (New York, 1959); H. Wayne Morgan, William McKinley
and
His America (Syracuse, N. Y., 1963).
3. Charles S. Olcott, The Life of
William McKinley (New York, 1916), I, 113.
4. Cleveland Leader, August 25, 1895; Joseph G. Butler, Presidents I Have
Seen and
Known: Lincoln to Taft (Cleveland, 1910), 40-41.
5. Robert M. La Follette, La
Follette's Autobiography: A Personal Narrative of
Political Experiences (Madison, Wis., 1919), 114.
6. Speeches and Addresses of William
McKinley (New York, 1893), 17.
7. Ibid., 97.
8. Ibid., 105.
9. Ibid., 350.
10. Olcott, William McKinley, I,
115.
11. Speeches and Addresses (1893),
376.
12. Ibid., 6.
13. Ibid., 187.
14. Ibid., 295.
15. Ibid., 71.
16. Ibid., 327.
17. Ibid., 96.
18. Ibid., 71. Limitations of
space and purpose forbid a full discussion of the economic
theory behind protection or of its
historical validity. If the American economy had rested
on export trade, as did that of England,
free trade would have been beneficial and per-
haps imperative. An effective case can
be made, however, for protection in this era
because of American domestic resources,
markets, labor supply, and capital development.
The real issues involved are two: (1)
What products merited protection and on what
basis? (2) At what stage in an
industry's growth should protection have ended? The
problem is really one of degree and
selection. Theoretically, the Democratic reformers
of the late 1880's had a good case,
since they proposed reductions on finished goods where
price levels and demand warranted them.
In practice, however, they favored the old
geographical interests for purely
political reasons. Both the Mills bill of 1888 and the
Wilson bill of 1894 protected southern
and western products at the expense of eastern
manufactured products. The best answer
was scientific management by a nonpartisan
board of experts, much as was done
slowly with the civil service. However wise that
may have been economically, it was
impossible politically.
19. Speeches and Addresses (1893), 70-105.
20. Ibid., 131-159.
21. See Allan Nevins, Grover
Cleveland: A Study in Courage (New York, 1932),
367-382.
22. See Revision of the Tariff, Miscellaneous
House Documents, 51 cong., 1 sess.,
No. 176; Morgan, William McKinley and
His America, 123-151.
23. See David S. Muzzey, James G.
Blaine: A Political Idol of Other Days (New York,
1934), 437ff.
24. Blaine had fostered Pan-Americanism
as secretary of state for Garfield in 1881,
but left office before finishing his
plans or accomplishing a great deal. See David M.
Pletcher, The Awkward Years: American
Foreign Relations Under Garfield and Arthur
(Columbia, Mo., 1962), esp. 59-86,
170-191, 284-307.
25. Speeches and Addresses (1893),
397-430. Many normally low tariff southerners
bitterly assailed the bounty scheme and demanded
protection for sugar in Louisiana.
26. See H. Wayne Morgan, "Western
Silver and the Tariff of 1890," New Mexico
Historical Review, XXXV (1960), 118-128.