| "Despite
the importance of the tariff issue to politics between 1877 and 1913,
very little has been done in a serious scholarly way to explore the
impact of the tariff on the history of the two major parties. Reitano
has chosen to write about a measure, the Mills Bill of 1888, that
did not become law. Nonetheless, she has taken this episode and used
it to provide a stimulating and important analysis of the public rhetoric
about protection and free trade. Her book makes a significant contribution
to Gilded Age political history, and it offers an original interpretation
of the election of 1888."—Lewis L. Gould, University of Texas
at Austin
Protective tariffs were part of American life long before the era
of NAFTA and GATT. In the late nineteenth century, the "tariff question"
was one of the most controversial issues of the day. As Joanne Reitano
shows in this far-reaching study, the ensuing debate was anything
but an empty exercise in political rhetoric occupying only politicians
and lobbyists. The tariff was of central concern to a broad crosssection
of people because of its perceived relationship to immediate economic
problems, such as wages, prices, and trusts. In fact, it became
a means for many Americans to wrestle with the implications of the
country's rapid growth and the impact of industrial capitalism on
American life.
Reitano focuses on the election year of 1888, when the tariff was
adopted as a cause célèbre by President Grover Cleveland,
Congress, the two major parties, and the press. At the heart of
the debate was the Mills Bill for tariff reduction. Although the
bill failed to pass, Reitano finds in the rancorous public debate
a barometer of changes in the American mind in the Gilded Age. She
carefully blends intellectual, political, economic, and social issues
through analyses of the Congressional Record, press coverage of
the debate, academic and polemical literature, political cartoons,
and the presidential campaign. Ultimately, Reitano contends that
ideas about political economy have always been central to the American
mind. They were so in the Gilded Age as they are today. |
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