With its work on the tariff unfinished, the Senate adjourned for the year in late November, just weeks after a major crash in the stock market. The Federal Reserve had started raising interest rates in January 1929 in an effort to reign in surging stock prices. This tightening of monetary policy began to slow the economy and eventually produced a sharp fall in asset prices. The stock market collapse in late October signaled uncertainty about the nation’s economic outlook. Some observers have linked the stock market crash to Congress’s consideration of the tariff, but it is highly unlikely that
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