FUNDAMENTAL CONDITIONS 21 



1873 had a disastrous effect on agriculture and aggravated the 

 evils. The farming class, which had begun to feel the pinch 

 some time before the crash came, suffered in common with others 

 during the protracted depression which followed. Business was 

 stagnant, money scarce, and prices low, and the farmers fre- 

 quently found it difficult to dispose of their crops at anywhere 

 near remunerative prices. 1 



Another result of the Civil War which worked to the dis- 

 advantage of the agricultural class was the high customs tariff, 

 adopted during the war primarily for the purpose of raising 

 revenue but continued as a measure of protection to American 

 manufacturers. The urgent need of revenues occasioned by 

 the war, the greed of manufacturers, the necessity of off-setting 

 the new internal revenue duties, and the lack of any systematic 

 study of the subject resulted in an illogical and unsystematic 

 aggregation of tariff rates which were often so high as to reduce 

 the national revenue by restricting importation. As a war 

 measure, emanating from a Congress too much occupied by 

 more vital problems to devote itself to a study of the tariff, 

 this might be excusable, but there can be no justification for 

 its continuance in practically the same form after the war was 

 over. The efforts of the interested manufacturers, however, 

 were successful in preventing any serious alteration. 2 This 

 tariff, as all high protective tariffs in a country whose production 

 exceeds the demand for home consumption, bore with especial 

 severity on the farmers, particularly in the staple producing 

 regions of the South and West. The price which the farmer 

 received for his cotton and his grain was fixed by the sale of the 

 surplus in the unprotected markets of the world, while the cost 

 of nearly everything he consumed, whether imported or of 

 domestic production, was vastly enhanced for the benefit of 

 the manufacturers. Even the home market idea proved a 



1 Rhodes, History of the United States, vii. 36-53. 



2 Dewey, Financial History, 299-305, 396-398; C. B. Spahr, An Essay on the 

 Present Distribution of Wealth in the United States, 346; Elliot, American Farms , 

 187-205. 



