Tariffs In The Gilded Age

ASU HST 200 (Historical Themes) Politics in the Gilded Age 1870-1900 Tariffs In The Gilded Age Apart from the civil service, President Arthur also introduced tariffs, or charges on foreign goods entering the US economy, as a means of implementing reforms. In the US, tariffs had long been a contentious issue, particularly as the nineteenth century was coming to an end. It seemed that lawmakers were caving in to the demands of large corporations, who wanted greater tariffs to compel Americans to purchase their homegrown products instead of more expensive imports. On the other hand, many working-class families and farmers, to the extent that any of them properly understood such economic processes beyond the prices they paid at shops, preferred reduced tariffs since they would drop prices and lessen the typical American's cost of living. Arthur established the U.S. out of growing concern about the latter group. established 1882 to look at the legitimacy of progressively higher tariffs. The best Arthur could do, in spite of his worries and the commission's suggestion for a 25 percent reduction in most taxes, was the "Mongrel Tariff" of 1883, which reduced tariff rates by a meager 5 percent. As the 1884 election drew nearer, such audacious attempts at change further persuaded Republican Party officials that Arthur was not their best bet to stay in the White House. Arthur soon discovered that he was a guy without a social life. The Republican Party once more looked inside its ranks as the 1884 election drew closer in search of a candidate who could preserve its reforming persona while bringing back some semblance of the spoils system. When the dominating Half-Breeds were unable to locate such an individual, they once more looked to Senator Blaine, their leader. But as rumors of his numerous corrupt deals started to spread, a sizable section of the party decided to forgo the conventional Stalwarts vs. Half-Breeds argument and create their own group, the Mugwumps, named after the Algonquian word meaning "great chief." In an attempt to take advantage of the chaos within the Republican Party and win the presidency for the first time in almost thirty years, the Democratic Party decided to court the support of the Mugwump movement by putting up Grover Cleveland, the reform governor of New York who gained notoriety for taking aim at New York City's machine politics. With fewer than thirty thousand votes separating them, Cleveland prevailed narrowly despite several personal accusations against him for fathering an unmarried child. President Arthur delivered some first blows, which were somewhat mitigated by Cleveland's record on civil service reform. The spoils system really worked quite well for the Democrats, who had just elected the first Democratic president since 1856. Nonetheless, Cleveland was a noteworthy reform president when it came to tariffs and commercial regulation. As soon as the U.S. Cleveland pushed Congress to enact the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 after the Supreme Court decided in 1886 that individual states could not regulate interstate shipping. This statute established the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to regulate railroad rates and guarantee that they remain fair to all consumers, among other functions. This change was significant. In the past, railroads charged expensive fees to small farmers with little economic power while giving special subsidies to large corporations, such John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil. The lack of enforcement authority held by the ICC caused initial progress to be gradual, even though the legislation finally provided for meaningful control of the railroad sector. Even with its first attempts to control railroad charges, the U.S. In Interstate Commerce Commission v. Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Texas Pacific Railway Cos., the Supreme Court discredited the commission. 1897 was the year. A majority of the court felt that rate regulations were restrictions on profits that went against the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee against taking away someone's property without giving them due process. Cleveland concurred with Arthur's view that tariffs were still too high and blatantly intended to shield large domestic sectors at the expense of regular consumers who stood to gain from global competition. Cleveland's efforts to reform the civil service and the tariffs were well received by the people, but powerful merchants and industrialists insisted that the next president had to reinstate the protective tariffs at any cost. The Republican Party looked to Benjamin Harrison, the grandson of former president William Henry Harrison, to oppose the Democrats' re-nomination of Cleveland. Harrison rode the powerful coattails of several businessmen and party bosses to win the crucial electoral states of New York and New Jersey, where party officials emphasized Harrison's support for a higher tariff, and secure the White House even though Cleveland narrowly prevailed in the popular vote overall. It was not unexpected that the United States experienced a temporary return to higher tariffs and a strengthening of the spoils system following Harrison's triumph. The McKinley duty was, in fact, the largest duty in American history at the time, raising certain rates by as much as 50%. Harrison implemented a number of measures that were mainly ineffectual but were meant to provide assistance to regular Americans who were struggling with high expenses and poor salaries. Initially, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890 attempted to outlaw corporate monopolies as "conspiracies in restraint of trade," but in its first 10 years of existence, it was seldom ever put into practice. Second, that same year's Sherman Silver Purchase Act mandated that the U.S. Treasury will coin more than four million ounces of silver each month in an effort to boost the economy's liquidity, drive up the cost of agricultural products, and assist farmers in paying off their debts. However, the past "hard money" practices that had driven farmers into deeply ingrained debt cycles and lowered prices could not be reversed by the legislation. Other African American-supporting bills that Harrison put up, such as an Education Bill meant to boost public education and raise the percentage of African Americans who are literate and a Force Bill to safeguard votes in the South, were also defeated.