Highest tariff in United States history to that point.
Despite a Treasury surplus attributable to previous tariffs,
William McKinley, Republican member of the House of Representatives from Ohio and chair of the House Ways and
Means Committee, introduced a tariff measure that increased
duties on imports so substantially that it barred some
foreign-made goods from entering the United States. Moreover, the measure had two other features that particularly differentiated it from previous tariffs: reciprocity (which allows
for the reduction of duties charged a specific country in exchange for more favorable tariff rates from the other country) and the promotion of new industries, especially the tinplate industry, which made thin sheet iron or steel coated
with tin. Republican Senator Matthew Quay of Pennsylvania,
who had comanaged Benjamin Harrison’s successful presidential campaign in 1888, strongly supported the passage of
the tariff bill partly because of his many campaign promises
to industrialists. Quay ensured passage of the bill by gaining
Southern support through a compromise that prevented a
vote on a federal elections bill concerning the right of African
Americans to vote.
Many farmers and urban laborers called the 1890 McKinley measure a “rich man’s tariff.” Republicans asserted that the
McKinley tariff would benefit workers through higher wages,
but once the tariff was enacted, prices immediately rose faster
than wages. Emphasizing the problems with the tariff, the
Democrats soundly defeated the Republicans in the 1890
Congressional elections, and Grover Cleveland, the Democratic candidate, won the presidency in 1892. In 1894 the
Wilson-Gorman tariff increased rates once again.
—Steven E. Siry
References
Terrill, Tom E. The Tariff, Politics, and American Foreign
Policy: 1874–1901. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1973.