American History: Benjamin Harrison Defeats Cleveland Over Tariffs in 1888

26 May 2010

Benjamin Harrison

FAITH LAPIDUS: Welcome to the MAKING OF A NATION – American history in VOA Special English.

In the presidential election of eighteen eighty-eight, one issue that played a major part was tariffs.

At that time, import taxes were high on many products. The high tariffs protected American goods from competing with lower-priced foreign imports. The tariffs protected millions of jobs in American industry. Not everyone, however, supported high tariffs.

The president of the United States, Grover Cleveland, decided that high tariffs were wrong. He told other Democratic leaders that he would try to get the tariffs reduced.

The politicians warned him not to try. They said he would only lose the support of business people. They said he would need campaign money from business if he expected to be elected president again. But Cleveland rejected their advice.

This week in our series, Shirley Griffith and Ray Freeman tell about the presidential election of eighteen eighty-eight.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: President Cleveland believed that high tariffs hurt more Americans than they protected. High tariffs, he said, led to high prices on all products. He also opposed high tariffs because they brought in more money than the government needed. The extra money was kept in the public treasury. And this, Cleveland believed, slowed the American economy.