Editing Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act (section)

== Sponsors and legislative history ==
[[File:Smoot and Hawley standing together, April 11, 1929.jpg|thumb|[[Willis C. Hawley]] (left) and [[Reed Smoot]] in April 1929, shortly before the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act passed the House of Representatives]]

In 1927, the [[League of Nations]] held a [[Geneva World Economic Conference (1927)|World Economic Conference in Geneva]]. Their final report concluded that "the time has come to put an end to [[tariff]]s, and to move in the opposite direction". Vast debts and reparations from World War I could be repaid only through gold, services, or goods, but the only items available on that scale were goods. Many of the governments represented by the delegates to the conference did the opposite. In 1928, France was the first, passing a new tariff law and quota system.<ref name="Peel">{{cite book |title=The War: the root and remedy |author-link=Arthur George Villiers Peel |first=George |last=Peel |date=1941}}</ref>

By the late 1920s, the U.S. economy had made exceptional gains in productivity because of [[electrification]], which was a critical factor in [[mass production]]. Further factors in economic growth were [[Oil refinery#United States|US oil refineries]], replacing horses and mules with [[Motor vehicle|motor vehicles]]. One-sixth to one-quarter of farmland that had been devoted to feeding horses and mules was freed up, contributing to a surplus in farm produce. Nominal and real wages increased, but did not keep up with the [[productivity]] gains.

Senator Smoot contended that raising the tariff on imports would alleviate the overproduction problem, but the market reality was that the United States had been running a [[balance of trade|trade account surplus]]. Although manufactured goods imports were rising, manufactured exports were rising even faster. Food exports had been falling and were in a trade account deficit, but the approximate values of food imports only amounted to half the value of manufactured imports.<ref name="Beaudreau 1996">{{cite book |title=Mass Production, the Stock Market Crash and the Great Depression |last=Beaudreau |first=Bernard C. |year=1996 |publisher=Authors Choice Press|location=New York, Lincoln, Shanghai }}</ref>

[[File:Smoot Hawley Senate Vote.svg|thumb|Senate vote by state
{{legend|#00FF00|Two ''yeas''}}
{{legend|#FF0000|Two ''nays''}}
{{legend|#FFFF00|One ''yea'' and one ''nay''}}
{{legend|#ACFFA1|One ''yea'' and one ''abstention''}}
{{legend|#FFADAD|One ''nay'' and one ''abstention''}}
{{legend|#B8B8B8|Two ''abstentions''}}
]]
In late 1929, as the global economy entered the first stages of the [[Great Depression]], the main goal of the U.S. was to protect its jobs and farmers from foreign competition. In 1929, Smoot championed another tariff increase within the United States, which became the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Bill. In his memoirs, Smoot made it abundantly clear: "The world is paying for its ruthless destruction of life and property in the [[World War I|World War]] and for its failure to adjust purchasing power to productive capacity during the [[industrial revolution]] of the [[Roaring Twenties|decade following the war]]."<ref name="Meril1990">{{cite book|last=Merill|first=Milton|year=1990|title=Reed Smoot: Apostle in Politics|location=Logan, UT|publisher=Utah State Press|page=340|isbn=0-87421-127-1}}</ref>

Smoot was a [[History of the United States Republican Party|Republican]] from [[Utah]] and chairman of the [[Senate Finance Committee]]. [[Willis C. Hawley]], a Republican from [[Oregon]], was chairman of the [[House Committee on Ways and Means]]. During the [[1928 United States presidential election]], one of [[Herbert Hoover]]'s campaign promises was to help beleaguered farmers by increasing tariffs on agricultural products. Hoover won, and Republicans maintained comfortable majorities [[1928 United States House of Representatives elections|in the House]] and [[1928 United States Senate elections|the Senate]] in 1928.<ref name="Irwin 1996"/>

The House passed a version of the act in May 1929, increasing tariffs on agricultural and industrial goods. The House bill passed on a vote of 264 to 147, with 244 Republicans and 20 Democrats voting in favor of the bill.<ref name="Irwin 1996">{{cite journal|last=Irwin|first=Douglas A.|author2=Randall S. Kroszner|title=Log-Rolling and Economic Interests in the Passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff|journal=Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy|date=December 1996|volume=45|page=6|url=http://research.chicagobooth.edu/economy/research/articles/124.pdf|access-date=January 17, 2011|doi=10.1016/s0167-2231(96)00023-1|s2cid=154857884|archive-date=July 18, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110718215424/http://research.chicagobooth.edu/economy/research/articles/124.pdf}}</ref> The Senate debated its bill until March 1930, with many members trading votes based on industries in their states. The Senate bill passed on a vote of 44 to 42, with 39 Republicans and 5 Democrats voting in favor of the bill.<ref name="Irwin 1996" /> The [[United States congressional conference committee|conference committee]] then unified the two versions, largely by raising tariffs to the higher levels passed by the House.<ref name="economist">{{cite magazine|url=http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12798595|title=The Battle of Smoot–Hawley|magazine=[[The Economist]]|date =December 18, 2008}}</ref> The House passed the conference bill on a vote of 222 to 153, with the support of 208 Republicans and 14 Democrats.<ref name="Irwin 1996" />