WASHINGTON (AP) — In President Donald Trump’s idealized framing, the
United States was at its zenith in the 1890s, when top hats and
shirtwaists were fashionable and typhoid fever often killed more
soldiers than combat.

It was the Gilded Age, a time of rapid population growth and
transformation from an agricultural economy toward a sprawling
industrial system, when poverty was widespread while barons of
phenomenal wealth, like John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan, held
tremendous sway over politicians who often helped boost their financial empires.

“We were at our richest from 1870 to 1913. That’s when we were a tariff country. And then they went to an income tax concept,” Trump said days
after taking office. “It’s fine. It’s OK. But it would have been very much better.”

Experts on the era say Trump is idealizing a time rife with government
and business corruption, social turmoil and inequality. They argue he’s
also dramatically overestimating the role tariffs played in stimulating
an economy that grew mostly due to factors other than the U.S. raising
taxes on imported goods.

And Gilded Age policies, they maintain, have virtually nothing to do
with how trade works in a globalized, modern economy.

“The most astonishing thing for historians is that nobody in the Gilded
Age economy — except for the very rich — wanted to live in the Gilded
Age economy,” said Richard White, a history professor emeritus at
Stanford University.

Dartmouth College economics professor Douglas Irwin said Trump
advocating for modern tariffs by pointing to the 1890s is flawed.

“We did grow rapidly in the late 19th century,” he said. “But it’s a stretch to attribute it to tariffs.”

The Gilded Age featured extraordinary wealth for a small class of people
that largely obscured rampant poverty for many other Americans. The name
comes from a 1873 novel, co-written by Mark Twain, which satirized the
greed and deceit of the era’s government and politicians.

Overall, the U.S. economy grew rapidly between 1870 and 1913, though
there were dips and recessions, too.

Some historians call it the second industrial revolution because of
major increases in manufacturing and factory output.

But White said those years were marked by erratic economic growth, and
those upturns were mostly fueled by millions of immigrants joining the
U.S. workforce. Indeed, the number of U.S. residents jumped from 38.5 million-plus in 1870 to more than 106 million by 1920. [See?]

Could tariffs replace the federal income tax?

In fiscal year 2024, the federal government collected about $4 trillion
in individual income tax and tax withholdings, according to the Treasury Department, compared with customs duties accounting for around $76.4
billion.

Republican strategist Karl Rove says that tariffs can’t realistically
replace a federal income tax. He noted in a February op-ed that from
1863 to 1913 tariffs brought in nearly half the U.S. government’s
revenue but last year they accounted for less than 2% of federal revenue.

McKinley champions the Tariff Act of 1890

As chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, McKinley championed the
Tariff Act of 1890, which set the then-highest import tax in U.S.
history, raising taxes to 49.5% on 1,500-plus items — everything from
glass to tin plates to cayenne pepper. The results were quickly poor for
the economy and for Republicans.

“It led to an increase in prices, a kind of inflation, even before the
bill took effect,” Merry said. “The argument was, it was carte blanche
for retailers and industrialists who basically jacked up their prices unnecessarily.”

Americans dealt Republicans landslide congressional defeats during the
1890 midterms, voting scores of incumbents out of office — including McKinley. The tariff fallout also helped Grover Cleveland win the White
House for Democrats in 1892, after he lost his reelection the previous
cycle.

McKinley rebounded, though.

Shortly after winning reelection in 1900, meanwhile, McKinley began
rethinking tariffs, as a stronger and still-growing U.S. manufacturing
base made him more appreciative of foreign markets.

“McKinley began to see that, if we were going to be able to sell our
goods overseas — as we were going to need to do because we would have
more goods than we’d have a market for — we were going to have to accept goods as well,” Merry said.

He said that McKinley gave a speech in Buffalo, New York, outlining
“this concept of reciprocity, which was: I’m prepared to bring down tariffs. Even me. Even William McKinley.”

“That was his first big initiative after being reelected,” Merry said.

In that speech on Sept. 5, 1901, McKinley said, “A policy of goodwill
and friendly trade relations will prevent reprisals. Reciprocity
treaties are in harmony with the spirit of the times. Measures of
retaliation are not.”

The day after his Buffalo speech, McKinley was shot by anarchist Leon
Czolgosz. He died on Sept. 14, 1901.

https://fortune.com/2025/03/10/trump-william-mckinley-tariffs-gilded-age/

A sad story.

--
“We need to acknowledge he let us down. He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him. We shouldn’t have listened to him, and we can’t let that happen ever again”.
-- Nikki Haley

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