The Great Protectionist, Sen. Reed Smoot of Utah

Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. 45, 1977, No. 4

The Great Protectionist, Sen. Reed Smoot of Utah

BY JAMES B. ALLEN

REED SMOOT IS BEST KNOWN in American history as the great advocate of a protective tariff, and he would have been proud to be so remembered. He entered the Senate when High Republicanism was at full tide. In that tradition he fought to promote the interests of American business, industry, and agriculture. The tariff, he thought, was the most effective weapon in the crusade. Although he had a personal financial stake in the sugar and woolen industries of Utah, he sincerely believed that a strong tariff was in the best interest of all segments of the American economy. His years in the Senate saw the apex of American tariff rates and culminated in the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930 with the highest duties ever imposed by the United States.

When Reed Smoot entered the Senate in 1903 the Dingley Tariff of 1897 was still in operation. This Republican measure had completely negated the intent of the liberal Wilson-Gorman law of 1894 by increasing the average rate on dutiable imports to 49 percent, the highest point yet in American tariff history. Of particular interest to Smoot were the duties on sugar and wool. Much had been said about protecting the infant beet sugar industry in the West, and this soon became a special concern of the Utah senator. The same was true with regard to wool: duties that had been completely removed in 1894 were restored. Other imports on which new or higher duties were placed included hides, silks, linens, chinaware, and certain iron and steel manufactures.

By 1909 the climate was right for an attempt to revise tariff rates downward. Pressure for revision came not only from Democrats but also from Progressive Republicans who were concerned with the high consumer costs created by rigid, near exclusionary, protective policies. In addition, the muckrakers were making the American public painfully aware of the growing power of the trusts and their influence on tariff legislation, all of which supported the feeling that the rising cost of living was not unconnected with tariff policy. Even high protectionists w r ere ready to reconsider the Dingley law, recognizing that its hasty construction made it technically imperfect and difficult to administer. Besides, the Republican platform of 1908, influenced strongly by Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressives, pledged a revision of the tariff. Republican presidential candidate William Howard Taft personally called for a reduction, and party leaders agreed that a special session of Congress should be called immediately after the inauguration to perform the work of revision.

Immediately after the sweeping election of Taft, the House Ways and Means Committee held special hearings on the tariff during November and December 1908 and approved a bill introduced by Rep. Henry Clay Payne, chairman of the committee. The bill displayed a generally downward revision of tariff rates, though duties on certain textiles, gloves, and hosiery were materially increased. But in the Senate the logrolling for continuing high protection became evident. Nelson W. Aldrich, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Reed Smoot of Utah, a newly appointed committee member, were both ardent protectionists. After committee hearings, Aldrich introduced a bill on the floor of the Senate that made few concessions to revisionist sentiment; it was passed on July 18, 1909.

In the meantime, Taft had scarcely lifted a finger to fulfill his promise of substantial tariff revision. Not until Senate and House conferees met to iron out their differences did Taft exert any pressure at all. He finally used his influence to bring from them a compromise bill, which then passed both houses quickly.

Senate Progressives protested loudly., for even though the Payne- Aldrich Tariff was not as blatantly protectionist in tone as the tariff of 1897, it represented no basic change in policy. Duties on sugar and wool remained largely unchanged; and rates on such things as cutlery, finished razors, nickel and its alloys, the better grades of cotton goods, and higher grades of paper were advanced. Total reductions were more numerous than advances, but many of the reductions were on products of minimal importance while the advances on such things as textiles had a definite influence on foreign trade as well as domestic prices. In addition, many of the schedules included the so-called jokers—obscure changes working to the advantage of particular individuals who could exert influence on important congressmen or senators. Thus, excessive duties on such things as nippers, pliers, cheap cotton gloves, horn combs, and woven asbestos fabrics were included. Though such special favors were not uncommon in tariff history, it seemed particularly unfortunate that they should appear in a tariff supposedly enacted to fulfill a pledge for downward revision. Little wonder, then, that President Taft himself received the brunt of Progressive ridicule after he unwisely proclaimed to a crowd in Winona, Minnesota, that "on the whole ... I think the Payne bill is the best bill that the Republican Party ever passed." This controversial bill established the beginning of Reed Smoot's reputation, whether good or bad, as a master of tariff schedules and detail and also as one of the nation's great protectionists.

The Republican platform of 1908 expressed the doctrine of protection in these terms: "In all protective legislation, the true principle of protection is best maintained by the imposition of such duties as will equal the difference between the cost of production at home and abroad, together with a reasonable profit to American industries." Such a statement appears, at least on the surface, to be moderate. As F. W. Taussig observes, however, anything in the world can be produced in almost any country if the producer is assured of the cost of production together with reasonable profits.

In a familiar passage of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith remarked that "by means of glasses, hotbeds, and hot walls, very good grapes can be raised in Scotland, and very good wine can be made of them at about thirty times the expense for which at least equally good can be brought from foreign countries." In the same vein, it may be said that very good pineapples can be grown in Maine, if only a duty be imposed sufficient to equalize cost of production between the growers in Maine and those in more favored climes. Tea, coffee, cocoa, raw silk, and hemp,—any quantity of things that are now imported can be grown in the United States provided only that a duty high enough be imposed.

Smoot and his colleagues had no intention of extending protection to such extremes, but they were clearly interested in protecting any American business that, in their judgment, could provide reasonable service to the American people if foreign competition could be reduced or eliminated. Higher cost to the consumer seemed not to matter to them. Demonstrating his mastery of almost every item on the tariff schedules, Smoot said in 1909:

At the time of the Dingley bill postal view cards were unknown in this country, but as all Senators know, that business has grown to mammoth proportions.

The German importers, under the 5-cent rate that we now have, virtually control this market. . . . The House advanced the rate from 5 to 7 cents a pound. The Senate committee have now advanced it to 15 cents a pound and 25 percent ad valorem.

I suppose there is no Senator who has not received by mail lately postal cards showing views of America; yes, views of public buildings in Washington, printed on postal cards made in Germany. In order to save this business the committee have decided that the only way of doing it is to put a rate of duty of 15 cents a pound and 25 percent ad valorem. I will admit that it looks to be a very large increase, and it is an increase of 325 percent over present law, but nothing short of that, in the opinion of the committee, would save the business to the American lithographer.

Smoot did not suggest the degree to which a 325 percent increase in duty would profoundly expand, not just protect, the American lithography business, nor did he seem to care what this might do to the German postcard industry. But it was not his responsibility to care; for, to protectionists, his impassioned plea was the only true interpretation of the gospel of protection.

What role, then, did the Utah senator play in the formulation of the five basic tariff laws enacted during this career? Fortunately, the Reed Smoot diaries, only recently made available to scholars, help explain his work on tariffs. After Senator Smoot was reelected in 1908, Chairman Aldrich personally selected him as a member of the powerful finance committee. The move was advantageous to both. For Smoot, it was the assignment he cherished most, largely because this committee dealt with tariff matters. At the same time, Aldrich received "an absolutely loyal assistant whose labors in behalf of the common cause were indefatigable." It was Smoot who would do the tedious, grinding spadework, leaving higher strategy matters to the chairman. On the tariff of 1909, he was the prodigious workhorse who attended all committee meetings and Senate debates with tenacious regularity and also burned the midnight oil digging out facts, preparing schedules, meeting with lobbyists from a seemingly endless chain of interests, and preparing speeches and press releases for public consumption.

The Utah senator could not help but radiate his enthusiasm for the tariff as he approached his work with monumental self-confidence. Among other things, he had every assurance that the best interest of his native state would be promoted through his influence. To C. E. Loose he wrote, on March 19, 1909:

I assure you that I shall see that every Utah interest is protected in the tariff bill which is now under consideration. People do not understand how legislation is accomplished in the United States Senate. The work is done in committees and I notice that members of the Committee generally have their wishes gratified in matters pending before their various committees. The wool men, the mining men, the sugar people and in fact every other interest in Utah need not worry about the final outcome of these schedules in the bill.

Smoot was given specific charge of wool, silk, and lead schedules and was made a member of the subcommittee on sugar. He held frequent meetings with corporate representatives, evidently giving most of them a fully sympathetic ear. On March 24, 1909, for example, he met until late at night with a prominent silk manufacturer, going over suggested duties. He was instructed by Aldrich to work toward a specific duty in place of the current ad valorem charged, and this was eventually accomplished. On the other hand, when he met with anxious wool growers he told them frankly that the committee had no intention of raising duties above those of the Dingley Tariff, and his assessment of the situation held.

But the senator from Utah spent more time with the sugar schedule than with any other, with the result that sugar rates were left virtually unchanged. In light of the revisionist sentiment of the time and the fact that the sugar beet industry was already virtually supported by the tariff, this was a victory for protectionism. Smoot and his two colleagues on the sugar subcommittee did, however, concede to one wish of President Taft. In a meeting on April 8, Taft told the senators that he wanted to let the first 300,000 tons of sugar from the Philippines come in free. Smoot responded that if this was the president's wish, he and the others would see to it. Smoot and Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge drafted the appropriate amendment,which became part of the final legislation. Smoot spent long hours examining every aspect of the sugar schedules, and on May 26 he vigorously defended the continuing high duty in the Senate.

Smoot also became involved with other industries. Along with Senator Lodge, he was appointed as a special agent to "fire up" the watch interests and to give special hearings to watch importers. It fell to Smoot to try to get the mining interests together, and on April 23 he held a long meeting in which the zinc miners and smelter owners could not agree. He finally told them that unless they could get together on their requests the Senate would act without their advice. He also met with representatives of such diverse interests as coal tar, glove leather, plate glass, and tobacco. He was, indeed, becoming the master of detail.

At the same time, Smoot successfully resisted the flood of overtures from lobbyists whose causes he felt extreme, even if they were from his native Utah. In May, for example, he received a visit from Joseph Nibley of Salt Lake City, who had a letter from his father Charles W. Nibley, the presiding bishop of the LDS church, as well as from the church president. Smoot took the visitor to dinner but recorded in his diary: "His visit does not blind me in the least." The mineral water interests, Smoot believed, were trying to influence him through Nibley, to whom they had offered $2,500 if he could get the senator to vote for higher duties. Forthree days the mineral water lobbyist badgered him but, recorded Smoot, after Nibley's last visit: "He certainly did not convince me." It was probably a long succession of such persistent buttonholing that led him to write in his diary on June 18: "I can not walk down the street or step into the hotel but I am stopped by men wanting a change in rates and always higher ones."

Smoot's job included more than just working out details; Aldrich also depended on him for assistance in defending the bill in the Senate and to answer any question. He went about this task with a vengeance. In early May, for example, Smoot noted in his diary the bitter attacks on the bill by Sen. Jonathan Dolliver but observed that even though the strain of overwork was beginning to tell, he could not let up, for other senators were looking to him to answer any attack. On June 1 he presented to the Senate an elaborate defense of the cotton schedule, which took him nearly three hours to deliver. His diary leaves the reader feeling that he may have been overly impressed with his own importance, but his perseverance matched his self-image perfectly.

It would be impossible, of course, to assess accurately Smoot's relative influence when compared with other protectionists, but it can be said that Aldrich was pleased, impressed, and eager to reward his junior colleague, even though it meant a conflict with Henry Cabot Lodge. After widely divergent bills passed the two houses of Congress, Smoot was anxious for a seat on the conference committee, but Senator Lodge, who was senior to him, insisted on the assignment. Aldrich wanted to appoint Smoot, but when Lodge was intransigent he resorted to the strategy of appointing Sen. Shelby Cullom, who was senior to Lodge, with the understanding that Cullom would then resign and ask Smoot to serve in his place.

The conference committee was no picnic for Senator Smoot, especially after he began to feel the pressure from President Taft. Particularly galling to Smoot was Taft's insistence that hides and certain raw materials be placed on the free list. Smoot's diary reveals such tense scenes as the conferees meeting with the president in the White House but accomplishing little; Congressman Payne becoming huffy when Senate Republicans refused to admit certain raw' products, saying he would refuse to sign the report and that he had the president behind him; the president doggedly insisting on free hides and Smoot finally, on July 27, wearily writing in his journal: "The conferees have agreed to report free hides with reductions on shoes, leather, and leather products as demanded by the President. We could not prevent it." But he had one consolation two days later, after the final conference report was agreed upon. "Utah is protected," he wrote, "in everything but hides and she has but few of them."

On August 5, 1909, the Payne-Aldrich Tariff became law, and Senator Smoot recorded in his diary that he was congratulated by the president, vice-president, and many senators and cabinet officers. At the same time, one can understand the disappointment suggested on April 13 when, after a particularly full day of congratulations and thanks on his committee work, he noted that not one person from Utah had come to see him. It is clear, however, that his labors in 1909 established his reputation as a hard-working, tough-minded expert on tariff schedules as well as an ardent protectionist. As he duly recorded in his diary on April 20: "It is generally conceded that I am the best informed person on the tariff bill in the Senate outside Aldrich. I have had a chance to make a reputation and I have improved the opportunity."

Senator Smoot had, indeed, established himself with the president and other Republican leaders. In 1911 he was often called in for counsel by President Taft, particularly with regard to two measures. One was the plan for a reciprocal trade agreement with Canada, which the president pressured Smoot to support. Smoot complained that this could do nothing but hurt American farms; but in the end the Democrats and Progressive Republicans combined to pass the bill, much to Smoot's dismay. The other major area of discussion was a 1911 bill which would reduce the tariff on wool. When it looked as if the bill would pass, it was Smoot with whom the president counseled on his veto message and who provided him with considerable data as he was preparing it. Smoot worked day and night against the tariff revision, and after an August 15 speech, of which he was particularly proud, he wrote: "I was complimented for the speech the way I delivered it. I spoke off the head with all the earnestness I could command. The wool report was received and adopted by the Senate. The President had his veto message ready." Debates on wool continued for over a year, and Smoot tried vainly to write a Republican bill that would keep what he considered reasonable rates. Even in committee, however, he was unable to muster the necessary votes. The Democratic bill finally passed the Congress, but Smoot breathed a sigh of relief when Taft vetoed it on August 12, 1912. The wool tariff was saved a little longer, but insurgency was in the air and in the next session Smootian protectionism would be overwhelmed.

By 1913 the Democrats held the presidency and a majority in both houses of Congress. With the tariff as a principal national issue, and one of the few issues on which there was a clear distinction between the parties, there seemed to be a public mandate for reform. In addition, the new Income Tax Amendment became law in 1913. For the first time there was a basis for separating considerations of tariff rates from the problem of federal finance. The time again seemed ripe for tariff revision. The result was the Underwood Tariff of 1913, which Smoot and others derisively referred to as "the Democratic Tariff."

The new tariff was by no means a free-trade document, but according to Oscar W. Underwood, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Congress had adopted a "competitive theory." Said Underwood :

No revenue can be produced at the customs house unless there is some competition between the products of foreign countries and domestic products; ... if you put the wall so high that you close the door to importation no revenue can be raised, and ... if you want to raise revenue at the customs house you must admit some importations before the tax will fall upon them and revenue be raised.

In other words, the Democrats wanted to make the tariff low enough to ensure competition but not so low that domestic production would be seriously injured or destroyed. Achieving this kind of balance would be difficult if not impossible.

The new tariff reversed the protective policy that had been in effect for half a century. The duty on wool was removed entirely and that on woolen cloth substantially reduced. Important reductions were enacted for cotton goods, silks, pottery, china, and porcelain. The duty on sugar was also reduced, and after May 1, 1916, sugar was to be admitted free. Senator Smoot was appalled, but it bore out a prediction he had made in a letter of April 18, 1913: "It begins to look as if President Wilson, the greatest autocrat of them all, will be powerful enough to compel the western Democrats to submit to free wool, free sugar in three years, and lead at 25 percent acl valorem." The western Democrats had earlier declared that they intended to protect these commodities, but, according to Smoot, they had become "as mild as little lambs."

The discouraged senator from Utah was able to do little more than try to find ways to amend the Democratic revisions and to listen with sympathy to the tales of woe coming from every corner of the protectionist camp. "Manufacturers from all over the country are here worried over what the Democrats are going to do by way of revision of the tariff," he lamented on April 4. "They all call on me and I give them very little encouragement." As a minority member of the Senate Finance Committee, he did what he could to soften the coming blow, although most of his efforts were in vain. Meetings were held with representatives of all protected interests, and Smoot continued in his usual thorough way to gather information on the effect of tariff rates in order to be prepared for whatever testimony he could give. He frequently offered amendments to the bill, most of which were rejected, and on August 19 he made a three-hour defense of sugar. "I put into the speech all the energy I was capable of doing," he wrote. "I was completely tired out at the close of the speech and even my shirt was wet with perspiration. Senator Smith of Michigan said it was the greatest speech he ever heard delivered in Congress." But the Democratic tariff was passed, and the disgusted Senator Smoot spent the next eight years attacking it.

The Underwood Tariff seemed like the golden opportunity for Americans to see who was wrong and who was right. Would the lower duties and the move away from protection actually destroy American industries and hurt American labor as the Republicans proclaimed, or, as the Democrats hoped, would it bring down the cost of living and provide healthy competition for American business? Unfortunately there was no opportunity for a real test. Within a few short months war engulfed Europe, imports which competed with American products were practically eliminated, and American goods formerly protected by the tariff wall were being exported to neutral countries. After the war several abnormal conditions further prevented the Underwood Tariff from having a fair trial, especially after the sweeping Republican victories at the polls. Americans seemed to be infused with a renewed spirit of self-sufficiency and with a determination not to be caught short in any item in case of another emergency. In addition, the war spawned a number of new industries that, with the renewal of foreign competition, seemed in danger of being eliminated. Finally, in 1920-21 a severe decline in farm prices led farmers and their representatives in Congress to the conclusion that a flood of foreign agricultural imports was the cause of their economic ills. The result was the Emergency Tariff Act of 1921 that imposed high duties on agricultural products such as wheat, wool, potatoes, corn, meat, and sugar and laid the groundwork for the return to permanent protection in the Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922.

In the meantime, Smoot's political fortunes were again beginning to smile. He played a major role in securing the nomination of Sen. Warren G. Harding as the Republican candidate for president in 1920, and on June 14 he discussed campaign strategy with Harding. "Senator Harding told me," he confided in his diary, "that I was to be part of his administration. If I wanted to be Scty. of the Treasury, I had but to ask for it. He told me he was not making promises for appointments, but wanted me to know how he felt. I told him I would prefer to remain in the Senate." It was no light matter to turn down such a prestigious position, but it may well have been that Smoot saw the handwriting on the tariff wall: a Republican Congress had been elected in 1918; Harding would undoubtedly be elected in 1920; and the senator from Utah was moving close to the top in seniority on the Senate Finance Committee. All these factors combined would give him more power than ever before to promote his greatest economic and political passion, the protective tariff. He had only one more serious, but temporary, rebuff to face. During the lame duck session of Congress in the winter of 1920-21 the Republicans passed an emergency tariff bill, but when it went to conference after several Senate amendments, Smoot made every effort to keep it there until the end of that session of Congress. "I don't want Pres. Wilson to have a chance to veto it," he explained, "for I think the public will agree with him." However, it was forced out of committee, Wilson did veto it, and Smoot was unhappy on both counts. Within two months a new emergency tariff had been passed and signed by the new president, Warren G. Harding. The future looked bright.

By 1921 Smoot's role in tariff legislation was not only that of a senior member of the finance committee but also that of close advisor to the president. His diary for the 1920s is filled with mention of repeated conferences with Presidents Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover on tariff matters, and in every case he seemed to have their confidence. It was a new era of High Republicanism, and such philosophical differences as Smoot may have had with Taft were not apparent with the Republican presidents of the 1920s.

When it came time to work on the Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922, Reed Smoot was ready in every way. His work on schedules, his meetings with lobbyists, and his defending protection on the floor of the Senate and in conference committee seemed to be almost an expanded version of 1909, except that this time he devoted even more energy to sugar. "Senator Smoot venerates unspeakably the sugar beet," chided the New York Times, but few people could laugh at his thorough knowledge of the industry or his tireless efforts to protect it. Sugar was one of the least popular tariffs in the country.

Sugar interests were worried over two possibilities: Cuba would soon begin to dump its sugar onto the American market, or political strife in Cuba might cause America to fulfill a long-standing threat to annex it. Either eventuality, Smoot believed, would be a disaster for American sugar. He even contacted Heber J. Grant, president of the LDS church, and Charles W. Nibley, presiding bishop, asking them to send experts to help in the campaign. (The church had extensive holdings in sugar.) He considered many plans, realizing that an extremely high tariff would not pass. One plan was to limit the amount of sugar Cuba could export to America; another was to assist Cuba in selling its product to Europe. But at times he found little help for sugar, even among members of his own committee. March 22, 1922, was a particularly bitter day for him. The House had placed a rate of $1.60 per hundred on Cuban sugar, and Smoot proposed that it be raised to $2.00. The vote against him, however, was five to three, after two senators who had promised him their vote suddenly, and without warning, switched. Hurt and angry, Smoot threatened the committee by declaring that he would have nothing more to do with the bill, he would become freelance, and if they lowered protection on sugar he would see to it that the same measure was applied to other items as well. "Things got very warm," he wrote unhappily in his diary, "and I gave them all to understand that I would not be so treated and the days work was brought to an abrupt conclusion." Later in the day Sen. Porter J. McCumber, committee chairman, and the two senators who so disappointed Smoot, all promised that they would support an amendment to raise the duty to $2.00 once the bill was on the Senate floor and suggested that this was their strategy all along. Smoot was serious about his threat to resign if the problem was not corrected, which led the senators to offer a reconsideration in committee. He told them he would decide later. "They wanted nothing said of my position for it would be fatal to the party if I resigned and fought the bill as I knew more about the bill than any member of the Senate. I was sick at heart." No more of the incident is recorded in the diary; but in the end the rate on Cuban sugar was set at $1.76, and no quotas were imposed. Smoot did not get all he wanted, but he still had protection.

The Fordney-McCumber Tariff included many provisions that were the direct result of farm bloc pressure and that Senator Smoot fullysupported. High duties were restored on cattle, wool, lemons, and practically all other important farm products. In addition, high duties were imposed on dyes, although a strong attempt to place an embargo on the importing of dyes was defeated by protectionists themselves, including Smoot, who did not want to grant a complete monopoly to the dye trust in America. The Republican's "true principle" of protectionism, however, was dramatically restored in 1923.

Another important part of the new law was the so-called flexible provisions that appeared for the first time and that allowed the president discretion in increasing or decreasing tariff rates. The new tariff was also significant because it was the first to benefit from the operation of the Tariff Commission established in 1916. The commission itself could never—under the restrictions placed upon it by Congress—replace the politicians in determining final results, and, therefore, tariffs still would not even approach the supposedly scientific determination that both parties seemed to be asking for. But at least the commission was able to provide the basis for schedules that were more professionally constructed and to improve the general administrative features of the customs system.

Not long after the Fordney-McCumber Tariff was enacted, Reed Smoot became chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. As such he had more influence on tariff legislation than he had ever had before. His senatorial career would, then, culminate with the committee assignment for which he felt best prepared, and with the passage of a tariff that bore his name and that approximated his ideal more closely than any other.

The Smoot-Hawley Act was the last of the old-time protective tariffs as well as the last with which Smoot had anything to do. It was primarily an agricultural tariff and raised duties on such things as cattle, meats, dairy products, breadstuff's, fruits, nuts, and vegetables. Of special importance to Smoot was the increase in duties on sugar and wool. In addition, various building materials were taken from the free list; and duties were raised on glass, pottery, clocks, and watches. Practically every schedule, in fact, was raised, and the result was the highest tariff in America's history.

Smoot's round of activities, through 1929 and well into 1930, in connection with his personal tariff was reminiscent of his earlier work: lobbyists, committee hearings, long hours of schedule-making, consultation with the president, speeches in the Senate, and rounds of congratulations. Compared to the energy he expended this time, however, the earlier years may well have seemed mere child's play. As described by Milton Merrill,

He entered the fray sadly worn. Mrs. Smoot, to whom he had been devoted, had died late in 1928. There were ominous cracks in his personal finances. He advised Nibley in late June that he could not sleep. He had tried sleeping tablets, but they left him more exhausted than ever. He was 67 years old. Nevertheless he plunged ahead with outwardly inexhaustible energy. If the tariff bill was to be his monument, it would be handbuilt. . . . He . . . pushed along with the placid persistence of a glacier.

His battle was magnificent in its scope, but undoubtedly a drain on every fiber of his body. He tried to get a sliding scale for sugar and allow Cuba a 20 percent advantage over other sugar importers. In this he failed, but at least the final rate on Cuban sugar was increased to $2.00 per hundred. He fought unreasonable increases on chemical and metal schedules. In his quest for fairness, he even authorized a plan for obtaining the income tax returns of certain importers in order to determine the true extent of their profits. But he often recorded in his diary his sleepless nights, his splitting headaches, and the fact that the tariff was being ridiculed in the public press. When the special 1929 session ended without a tariff law being passed, he wrote that the experience had nearly killed him, since he had had to take the brunt of the fight. On June 13, 1930, however, the bill passed the Senate by a narrow margin of 44 to 42. Smoot was assured that both the House and the president would concur, and telegrams of congratulations began pouring in. His simple comment, "I feel great relief since the action of the Senate," was probably the understatement of the decade.

But the Utah senator's cherished tariff could not have been enacted at a more inauspicious time. The economic depression precipitated by the great crash of 1929 was becoming steadily worse, economists were denouncing protection as a delusion, and the Democrats were soon to be swept into power in the campaign of 1932. The barrage of criticism became so severe that in 1934 Smoot's tariff was amended by an act that put into practice the principle of reciprocal trade agreements that Smoot had fought with a vengeance all his tariff career. A series of gradual reductions in duties replaced the system Smoot had worked so hard to build, as tariff history took new directions.

One authority on tariff history has declared that Smoot's cherished bill was "probably one of the most disastrous tariffs in world history." Since the United States had become one of the world's prime creditor nations, he explained, the tariff could hardly have been more badly conceived or timed. It had the effect of worsening the depression throughout the world as well as helping to bring retaliatory barriers against American exports and a drop in this nation's share of world trade. Thus, a generation after the zenith of Smoot's career, economic historians still criticize his proudest accomplishment in much the same terms as critics of his own time.

Today little is left of the formidable tariff wall Smoot labored for nearly thirty years to construct. Nevertheless, he exerted such an important influence in his own time that it seems significant briefly to consider the general philosophy on which he based his tariff actions. It seems clear that his ideas were hardly original with him, for they reflected the general attitude of the American business community of which he was a part. But he became one of the most ardent spokesmen of the philosophy of that community.

Smoot was not unaware of the classical arguments for free trade nor of the fact that most economists of his day saw grave economic consequences in a rigidly protectionist system. He rejected such arguments not only because of his personal interest in Utah sugar and other businesses but also because he was absolutely convinced that American prosperity and self-sufficiency were directly related to the protective tariff. Often dubbed the "apostle of protection," he was as fully convinced of the validity of protectionism as he was of the theology of Mormonism. In 1922 he predicted with assurance that the tariff would "bring prosperity to all the people of the United States from one end of the land to the other." In 1932 he told the Young Republicans, in a speech entitled "The Tariff as a Shock-Absorber against Depression," that

The American economic system has grown up on tariff protection. With brief and disastrous exceptions high tariffs have formed the basis of our industrial life ever since the Civil War. Protection against undue foreign competition has become a factor in our industrial equilibrium just as are the sources of power and the supplies of raw materials. Any movement to sweep away the foundation of our national economic policy must be considered an unfriendly act in times of prosperity.'

Evidence for these assertions came in an indignant response to Franklin D. Roosevelt's attack upon the tariff in the 1932 campaign. "It is charitable to assume that the Democratic presidential candidate is ignorant of the facts concerning our tariff and international trade," Smoot said. "Any other assumption would indict him for gross misrepresentation and intellectual dishonesty." To Roosevelt's claim that the tariff increased the cost of products purchased by farmers, Smoot replied that the price of finished products had fallen 20 percent since the 1930 tariff law. When Roosevelt claimed that four American factories were moving to Canada each week and that this was a result of Smoot's tariff, the Utahn replied that no American factory had moved to Canada and only one to any other country. Some branch plants, to be sure, had been set up in other countries, but most of these were before the 1930 law. The argument that the tariff had largely extinguished the American export market was met by pointing out that the decline in industrial production and the decline in foreign trade were almost exactly of the same proportion and that both were the result of other factors related to the depression. 36 On another occasion he declared that "It is time that the American people realized that the tariff defends their own workmen and their OWTL jobs and that attacks on it by Democratic nominees are dangerous blows." To his fellow Utahns he proclaimed:

We must remember that 90% of our farm products are used in domestic consumption, and it is that 90% that we must protect. In order to do so a Republican Administration must be returned to Washington.

Economically the United States has advanced far ahead of the rest of the world behind a protective tariff barrier. The major issue of this campaign is "Shall the barrier be removed so that the American people will have to slide back down to the economic level of the rest of the world."

Smoot believed America was prosperous under the tariff because it encouraged self-sufficiency. A high tariff on hides, for example, would help protect the independent tanner from monopolies, for if prices were too low only a monopoly could compete with foreign imports. The tariff would also help the farmer who could more easily sell his products directly to the independent tanner. The highly developed American market was "almost an economic unit in itself" in which all the parts were bound together by the policy of protection. Some 96 percent of its industrial production, Smoot proclaimed in 1932, was absorbed within its own borders. He waxed eloquent on the glories of self-sufficiency:

With such an opulent market of our own and such a diversified allotment of resources as we find within our confines, the United States is economically the most self-contained nation on earth. Yet the exports which spill over the edges of our vast home market exceed those of any other country.

Smoot could see no righteous motive on the part of those who would destroy the wall protecting this highly interdependent economic system:

. . . the vested interests of the Democratic party would try to obtain new foreign markets for the gigantic industries of this country by opening new markets in the United States for huge foreign cartels. What would be the result? Our smaller industries, in which the rank and file of the people are employed, would be crushed so that the great industries might fatten on export trade. I do not hesitate to denounce this conspiracy as the most un- American scheme that has ever been concocted to swindle our small industries and business enterprises of their right to live. It is an insult to the American people who, for a century and a half, have labored diligently to encourage industry and to enhance the self-sufficiency of this great Nation.

Such an economic outlook hardly left room in Smoot's imagination for the possibility that the tariff could be cause either of a depression or a decline in trade, yet one of the most damaging charges against his 1930 bill was that it produced a chain reaction of retaliatory tariffs that served further to stifle international trade and intensify the depression. Smoot could not understand that point of view. Admitting that there w r as a decrease in customs after the passage of his tariff law, he nevertheless believed that was accounted for by the flood of imports that hit the market just prior to the bill and by the general worldwide slump in business. Neither was the fault of tariff policy, he argued, but the situation certainly afforded opponents of protection the opportunity to "mislead" the American public. In November Smoot proclaimed that the real question was whether the tariff was high enough. A year later he argued that America, despite the tariff, was importing a larger percent of its commodities than before the depression and that his tariff allowed only a "small additional margin of protection to industry" while providing more realistic protection to agriculture. Besides, he reasoned, it was absurd to think that other nations would reduce their tariffs if the United States took the lead in that dangerous course: "Should the United States embark upon a lower tariff policy, other countries would graciously dump their surplus upon our domestic market while retaining their own markets for their own producers."

Smoot had few, if any, convincing arguments to show that his tariff policy did anything to promote American sales abroad, and it is difficult to understand why he did not recognize the validity of the argument that a high tariff would bring retaliatory tariffs from other countries. His stand became especially vulnerable after 1934 when a book entitled Tariff Retaliation appeared. Under a grant from the University of Pennsylvania, Joseph M. Jones, Jr., had spent two years in Europe studying the effects of the Smoot-Hawley Act. He found "wide, profound repercussions which impose urgent reflections upon our entire commercial policy." In particular, he found that European nations had, indeed, retaliated. There was little in the book to give comfort to Smoot.

Senator Smoot also opposed reciprocal trade agreements, which, he firmly believed, could only do damage to American industry and agriculture. No matter how noble their intent, they could only open the door to the kind of reductions that would eventually allow 7 inexpensively produced foreign goods to overwhelm American producers. Reciprocity, he believed, would work only to favor one class of American producers over another. To Smoot this was blatantly unfair.

It was for the benefit of agriculture that Smoot saved his most prodigious efforts, and it was to farmers that he made his most urgent appeals for support during the campaign of 1932. He told them that their best market was not abroad, but at home, and that unless the American people had jobs the farmers would have no place to sell their produce. It was sugar, of course, in which he took the greatest interest, and Milton Merrill suggests a number of reasons: his protectionist philosophy in general; his belief that, even though uneconomic to produce, sugar could become profitable with merely the aid of a moderate tariff; and the fact that Utah was a sugar-producing state and the tithes of the Saints had been faithfully invested in sugar factories. But Smoot also pointed out that many midwestern states were equally dependent upon the sugar beet, and he wanted it clearly understood that his interest was greater than simply protecting Utah. He was consistent, of course, for the "true principle" of protection called for protecting such industries if they could be made reasonably profitable. Reflecting his whole philosophy, with perhaps a touch of hyperbole, he cried out in the Senate in 1913:

I for one will never ask the farmers and wage earners of this country, whether they be descended from those who first landed on our shores or whether they be among those who have most recently sought the haven of America, that they shall place themselves upon the level of the half-naked and half-barbarous workers in the cane fields of foreign lands, wearing but a single garment, living in miserable huts, without fire and without light, subsisting upon the uncooked food that kindly nature provides about them. I will not ask them to descend to the level of the blacks of Cuba or the brown men of Java, who toil in the cane fields for 8 cents a day, or the yellow men of Formosa, who labor under conditions forced upon them by their cruel masters of Nippon. . . . Nor will the American people ask or permit any such thing. Yet only by such means, if their application were conceivable, would it be possible to compete with that very labor in this industry.

On balance, it is important to observe that Reed Smoot was not an extremist. He did not demand exclusionary rates on sugar and was even known to lower rates he thought excessive. He did not want to cut off Cuba entirely from American trade. He resisted, moreover, efforts to promote a dye embargo, for he knew the unfortunate effects that might result from a monopoly by American companies. "The purpose of our customs duties," he believed, "is to regulate and not dam up the stream of commercial intercourse."

But many economists, both then and now, would disagree with Smoot's way of regulating the stream of commercial intercourse, and Smoot himself did not fully answer some important objections to his philosophy. At the heart of many of his protariff arguments was the idea that low wages abroad would mean low prices on foreign goods, while high wages in America would mean high prices on domestic goods, all of which would result in a lower standard of living for America's farm and factory workers if the low-cost imports were allowed. He failed to respond satisfactorily to the argument that even though American wages were high, so also was American productivity and quality, and that these things were usually accompanied by low unit costs and thus low product prices to the consumer. Nor did he seem to recognize that imports often provided the monev with which foreign countries purchased American exports and that cutting off these funds through curtailing imports could actually reduce employment as well as real wages in America. Furthermore, many economists agree that in the long run free trade would be the most efficient system for the world, for it would allow each country to produce the goods for which it is most suited; and every nation would then benefit from the low costs of such specialization. To such an argument Smoot would simply reply that self-interest would prevent the countries of the world from voluntarily adopting a free-trade system and that self-interest demanded a high tariff wall around America.

These, then, were some of the elements of Reed Smoot's protectionist philosophy. Understanding them helps one understand what made men like him, who influenced the course of history, do the things they did. If they seemed myopic it was only because they were so fully devoted to the grandeur of the protectionist cause. Once they accepted protectionism as a "true principle" it took on the certainty and aura of a religious crusade, and Smoot was well-fitted to lead out in such a cause. Even if one disagrees with Smoot's strict protectionist doctrine, one can understand and admire the tenacity with which he pursued his goal. He had one great characteristic that some will admire and others scoff at, but at least it provided the basis for whatever he accomplished: his overwhelming confidence in his own wisdom and ability. He knew his own strengths and acted on them. As he boldly wrote in his diary in 1909, "I am protectionist and I shall legislate for America."

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