On this day in 1930 the Smoot-Hawley Tariff became law. I swear when I was in eighth grade it was the Hawley-Smoot Tariff. Apparently the forces of Smoot have ensured that he takes pride of place. Or maybe it’s the forces of Hawley who have ensured that Smoot takes the brunt of blame. Because the law is virtually synonymous with a Bad Thing. Remember this Golden Television Moment?
There’s Gore (yes, younger and thinner; so was I then) with his portrait of Smoot and Hawley, explaining Tariffs are Bad.
Whether Tariffs are Bad or not, there is a general consensus that the Smoot-Hawley Tariff was bad. It prevented other countries from trading to the U.S. at a time when that might have kept them out of depression, and it probably wouldn’t have hurt the U.S. either. Instead the renewed American commitment to protectionism prompted increases in other countries’ tariffs, and partly because of these policies, world trade did this:
Sometimes folks will point out that because trade accounted for such a small share of the U.S. economy, this couldn’t have mattered. Maybe so, but it mattered to other countries. And the 1930s taught us that when other countries suffer it can become our problem.
If you want to know how a law generally regarded as “asinine” got passed, you might look at Barry Eichengreen’s paper. If you want to know who called it “asinine,” and who predicted this kind of problem eleven years before it occurred, and other exciting stuff about the Great Depression and the New Deal, you know where to look. (Yes, I know you can find out using Google. But really, you should buy the book. Unless it would be a hardship for you. Otherwise, buy it. Please? Pretty please?)
49 comments
June 17, 2008 at 8:58 pm
ben wolfson
Let me guess: you burned through the advance, but sales have been sluggish, so Oxford’s threatened to send around some hard men to get the difference out of you, unless the units start moving?
June 17, 2008 at 9:12 pm
andrew
I bought it.
June 17, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Vance Maverick
Apparently you’re not alone. (Alas, the graphics have become lamer since I first used this site.)
June 17, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Fats Durston
Nothing I like better than to pull out my trusty ol’ Smoot & Hawley photo from the prop bag that I carry around.
June 17, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Brad
Voting statistics from 68.
Digressions about northern, working class voters going for Wallace.
Al Gore with a photo of Smoot and Hawley.
I love this blog.
June 18, 2008 at 3:31 am
foeb
I’ll trade you for my Sacco and Vanzetti.
June 18, 2008 at 4:24 am
silbey
Why do you Yankees insist on refighting the Civil War?
June 18, 2008 at 5:40 am
kid bitzer
yeah, you’re remembering 8th grade when it was hawley-smoot.
but you’re not remembering a history book, you’re remembering pogo comic books, where ‘hawley smoot!’ was used as a comical ejaculation, modeled on ‘holy smoke’.
(sort of a taboo deformation of a taboo deformation, i guess.)
June 18, 2008 at 8:22 am
eric
I love this blog.
This blog loves you too, Brad—but it would love you more if you bought my book. Maybe several, some for friends or loved ones, or for evening out that wobbly table.
June 18, 2008 at 8:22 am
eric
‘hawley smoot!’ was used as a comical ejaculation, modeled on ‘holy smoke’
I think I’ll adopt that.
June 18, 2008 at 8:38 am
ben wolfson
Of what taboo is “holy smoke” a deformation? Isn’t it a straightforward invocation of the holy ghost?
June 18, 2008 at 8:38 am
standpipe
I’m remembering a different eighth grade but the same Hawley-Smoot, courtesy of Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States.
Take it away, Bill Hawley and the Smoots!
June 18, 2008 at 8:39 am
standpipe
“Holy smoke” is a deformation of your mom.
June 18, 2008 at 8:43 am
The Modesto Kid
I’m pretty sure it’s “holy smokes!”
June 18, 2008 at 8:44 am
The Modesto Kid
(FWIW)
June 18, 2008 at 9:23 am
joel hanes
the forces of Smoot
Senator Smoot (Republican, Ut.)
Is planning a ban on smut.
Oh, rooti-ti-toot for Smoot of Ut.
And his reverent occiput.
Smite, Smoot, smite for Ut.,
Grit your molars and do your dut.,
Gird up your l–ns,
Smite h-p and th-gh,
We’ll all be Kansas
By and by.
Ogden Nash, Invocation, 1931
June 18, 2008 at 9:25 am
joel hanes
you’re remembering Pogo
Best Comic Strip Evar Bar None.
June 18, 2008 at 9:33 am
Ben Alpers
Has anyone ever considered whether this moment might have ultimately cost Gore the 2000 election (which he actually won, of course)?
NAFTA (and trade in general) was one of Nader’s signature issues. And by playing Spiro Agnew for the Clinton administration in this “debate” with Perot, Gore made himself the poster-boy for neoliberal trade policies.
June 18, 2008 at 9:35 am
Fats Durston
I’ll trade you for my Sacco and Vanzetti.
I’m an East Africanist, so really all I’ve got to offer is my Bushiri-Wissmann head-to-head, a Stanley-Tippu Tip handshake, and a John Kirk rookie card.
June 18, 2008 at 9:43 am
The Modesto Kid
Best Comic Strip Evar Bar None.
Not sure how this reference to Krazy Kat snuck into a thread about Smoot-Hawley.
June 18, 2008 at 10:16 am
joel hanes
]] Pogo
] Best Comic Strip Evar Bar None.
Not sure how this reference to Krazy Kat snuck into a thread about Smoot-Hawley.
I’ll give Herriman most of the points for artistic merit, especially in the landscape category. But Krazy Kat, however admirable, is too krazy to be the beloved.
Give me the quiet friendship between Pogo and Porky Pine, the grit and hard work and private despair of Ms. Beaver, the cowardice and pious hypocrisy of Deacon Mushrat, the table-talk of the bats playing cards — Walt Kelly’s characters and their weaknesses and vanities and triumphs of loyalty are deeply human and affecting. No Krazy Kat strip ever made me weep. Several Pogo strips do.
And can you think of even one boat with a funny name in Krazy Kat? Proof, I calls it.
June 18, 2008 at 3:24 pm
ben wolfson
The fact that joel hanes could sing Pogo’s praises so convincingly without mentioning Albert, Churchy, or Howland Owl—not to mention not mentioning Tammannany—only serves as a yet more convincing proof of the manifoldity of the delights lurking within Pogo’s modest form.
June 18, 2008 at 4:10 pm
» Comment on Asinine. by eric 8th Grade: What The World Is Saying About 8th Grade
[…] Comment on Asinine. by eric ‘hawley smoot!’ was used as a comical ejaculation, modeled on ‘holy smoke’… […]
June 18, 2008 at 4:22 pm
urbino
manifoldity
I believe the word is “manifolditude.”
June 18, 2008 at 4:49 pm
ksfeminist
Yeah, Dave Barry told me it was the Hawley-Smoot Tariff. Imagine my confusion when my professor kept calling it the Smoot-Hawley Tariff. Screwed me up that whole week…
June 18, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Brad
This blog loves you too, Brad—but it would love you more if you bought my book. Maybe several, some for friends or loved ones, or for evening out that wobbly table.
My God, someone kidnapped eric and replaced him with Yglesias. Fiends!
June 18, 2008 at 6:20 pm
eric
What, did I make a typo?
June 18, 2008 at 6:40 pm
The Modesto Kid
No, you advocated pleadingly for people to buy your book.
June 18, 2008 at 7:37 pm
foeb
You need a gimmick, my man, like Roosevelt and his dimes. Think big! If people buy your book… you will find them someone named Lucy to have an affair with. If people buy your book… you’ll personally inject them with polio vaccine. If people buy your book… they’ll come to know the true meaning of “Warm Springs.”
June 18, 2008 at 9:45 pm
teofilo
No Krazy Kat strip ever made me weep.
How many have you read? It ran for at least as long as Pogo, and most of the strips have never been republished. Of the few that I’ve read, there are definitely some that have been quite affecting.
That said, choosing between the two is in some sense beside the point, which is that however you rank them relative to each other both stand far above all other comic strips.
June 18, 2008 at 10:07 pm
ben wolfson
There also exist Peanuts partisans.
I have the 1950–2 Peanuts collection, and some of those strips are really excellent and make one want to get the collections at least through the close of the 60s.
June 18, 2008 at 10:15 pm
ari
MK, I think it’s safe to say that Eric is familiar with all internet traditions. But thanks for trying. And foeb, you may be onto something. As for you ben, I am one such partisan. One of my fondest memories from childhood has me sitting by a fire, reading a cache of my parents’ old Peanuts books. I’ll ask that you not besmirch this fond recollection — though I know it will be hard for you to resist.
June 18, 2008 at 10:27 pm
teofilo
I am aware of the Peanuts partisans, and while I’ve seen some of the early collections and recognize that they’re quite good, I still don’t see them as being in the same league as Pogo and Krazy Kat. In addition to the gradual decline of the strip over its extremely long run, its powerful influence on the genre as a whole led to a slew of imitations of quality ranging from mediocre to atrocious (along with a few decent ones). While Schulz obviously can’t be blamed directly for this, I still find that it makes his legacy problematic and casts a shadow over even the best of his early work. But maybe I’m just not the right type of person to truly appreciate Peanuts.
June 18, 2008 at 10:33 pm
ari
And it turns out that it’s Teo who dismisses the sanctity of my childhood memories. Surprised at this betrayal? Yes, yes I am.
June 18, 2008 at 11:00 pm
ben wolfson
If he were coming to grad school at davis, he could be violating your sanctity constantly.
June 19, 2008 at 12:00 am
joel hanes
Krazy Kat in the papers was before my time; I’ve read Krazy Kat: The Comic Art of George Harriman, and He Nods In Quiescent Siesta, but I grew up with Pogo and have made an effort to collect the books and the Fantagraphics repros of the daily strips.
I can understand how serious people can rank KK higher, but a Pogo Christmas Sunday panel with all the characters filled with joy and merriment, singing carols, is for me a near-holy thing. And Kelly’s political humor during the Nixon Unpleasantness was simply mordant; Spiro Agnew made an extended appearance in the Okefenokee as a hyena, and the resemblance, both physical and moral, was startling.
For a few years it was worth getting out of bed and padding down the driveway barefoot in the rain for the paper so I could read the new Calvin & Hobbes.
June 19, 2008 at 12:14 am
joel hanes
My favorite Peanuts strip went something like this:
Lucy and Charley Brown and Linus are supine on a grassy hilltop, looking at the sky.
LUCY: Look at all those clouds! Some people can see shapes and pictures in clouds like this — do you see any, Linus?
LINUS: Well, that group over there looks a lot like Boticelli’s Stoning of Saint Stephen — see, there’s all the elders over on the right. And that one over there looks a little like the Tower of London.
LUCY: Those are really good. Do you see anything, Charley Brown?
CHARLEY BROWN: I was going to say a horsey and a ducky, but I changed my mind.
June 19, 2008 at 4:18 am
The Modesto Kid
BTW: those of you who are interested in really excellent comic strips, should buy and read the collections of Tove Jansson’s “Moomin” comic strip published by Drawn and Quarterly — two are available and a third on its way this fall. They are, well, different from Pogo, Krazy Kat, Peanuts, or Calvin and Hobbes (which I agree are all very fine strips, with the caveat for the last two about gradual decline), and have a lot to recommend them. Also: the early years of Gasoline Alley have some nice moments.
June 19, 2008 at 6:05 am
kid bitzer
“with the caveat for the last two about gradual decline”
has there ever been a decline to match the decline of cathy?
that strip should seriously be euthanized.
or at least have its name changed to “backlash”, by susan faludi.
June 19, 2008 at 10:36 am
joel hanes
G.O. Fizzickle Pogo
June 19, 2008 at 2:04 pm
urbino
Bloom County was pretty good for a few years.
June 19, 2008 at 7:06 pm
dilbert dogbert
Someone please finish the song rattling around in my brain!
“Nora’s Freezing On The Trolley, Swaller, Doller alligaroo”
June 19, 2008 at 7:17 pm
The Modesto Kid
Deck us all with Boston, Charlie
Walla Walla, Wash., and Kalamazoo
Nora’s Freezin’ on the trolley,
Swaller dollar cauliflower Alligaroo
(To the tune of “Deck the Halls”)
June 19, 2008 at 7:18 pm
The Modesto Kid
Also:
Bark us all bow-wows of folly
Polly wolly cracker n’ too-da-loo!
Hunky Dory’s pop is lolly
Gaggin’ on the wagon, Willy, folly go through!
(Houn’ Dog’s version)
June 19, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Jason B
“has there ever been a decline to match the decline of cathy?”
Good criminy–that thing started as crap. It got worse? Has it caused a Marburg virus outbreak or something? Killed a busload of orphans? Terrible art and the same two unfunny jokes 3.5 times a week.
But hey, to each his own.
June 19, 2008 at 11:26 pm
ben wolfson
TMK, come on, you left out a verse:
Don’t we know archaic barrel,
Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou?
Trolley Molly don’t love Harold;
Boola boola Pensacoola,
Hullabaloo!
Some guy here claims many more verses:
“””
Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Walla Walla, Wash., an’ Kalamazoo!
Nora’s freezin’ on the trolley,
Swaller dollar cauliflower alley-garoo!
Don’t we know archaic barrel
Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou?
Trolley Molly don’t love Harold,
Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo!
Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Polly wolly cracker ‘n’ too-da-loo!
Donkey Bonny brays a carol,
Antelope Cantaloupe, ‘lope with you!
Hunky Dory’s pop is lolly gaggin’ on the wagon,
Willy, folly go through!
Chollie’s collie barks at Barrow,
Harum scarum five alarm bung-a-loo!
Dunk us all in bowls of barley,
Hinky dinky dink an’ polly voo!
Chilly Filly’s name is Chollie,
Chollie Filly’s jolly chilly view halloo!
Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Double-bubble, toyland trouble! Woof, woof, woof!
Tizzy seas on melon collie!
Dibble-dabble, scribble-scrabble! Goof, goof, goof!
“””
But only the first two are familiar to me.
June 20, 2008 at 6:43 am
The Modesto Kid
TMK, come on, you left out a verse:
And a key one at that! Sorry.
The “Bark us all bow-wows” verse and subsequent were not really more verses of the same song; Houn’ Dog introduced them one year as the authentic, forgotten words of the carol. He was shouted down (IIRC) by Albert and Churchy.
June 21, 2008 at 12:45 pm
joel hanes
I think the Perloo is almost ready to eat.
June 21, 2008 at 1:09 pm
urbino
I have to say: that carol doesn’t induce in me a desire to explore Pogo further.