Once again, a battle between the agricultural Midwest and the industrial East was postponed. But the agrarian demands for tariff reform and new tariff legislation would force Congress to revisit the issue sooner than the Republican leadership had expected or desired. The insurgents demanded a revision that would reduce tariffs on industrial products and increase them on agricultural goods, thereby supposedly providing relief for America’s ailing farmers. It is ironic that the seeds of the Hawley-Smoot tariff were laid not by greedy industrial lobbyists or the Republican leadership, but by
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