Clashing Over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy (Markets and Governments in Economic History)

by Douglas A. Irwin

Ida Tarbell, the muckraking journalist, was the person most responsible for driving this message home. In a six-part series entitled “The Tariff in Our Times,” published in the periodical The American in 1906–7 and later as a book, Tarbell sought to expose the corrupt politics and special interests that operated behind the scenes and influenced Congress in setting the tariff. In 1909, Tarbell published two widely noted articles—“Where Every Penny Counts” and “Where the Shoe Is Pinched”—in which she popularized the notion that protection inflated the profits of manufacturers while raising the cost of living and reducing the standard of living of working families. For the working class, “every penny added to the cost of food, of coal, of common articles of clothing means simply less food, less warmth, less covering.” She noted that the buying and mending of shoes accounted for a quarter of consumer spending on clothing. “It was hard enough for the poor to buy shoes ten years ago before the Dingley tariff, but with every year since it has been harder,”