1. The RTAA gave the President authority to alter tariff duties up to 50 percent of rates set under the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (United States Statutes at Large, 73d Congress, Sess. II, CH. 474: 943–46). It was renewed thirteen times between 1934 and 1962. The 1962 Trade Act altered the mechanism of the delegation so that it more closely resembled fast-track negotiating authority (officially adopted in 1974) in which Congress grants the authority for a President to commence negotiation of a trade agreement, and then Congress takes a simple yea/nay vote when the negotiation is concluded. In November 1997, Congress denied President Bill Clinton fast-track negotiating authority—the first time this authority has been denied to a President requesting it since Roosevelt. Schnietz, Karen and Nieman, Timothy, “Politics Matter: The 1997 Derailment of Fast-Track Trade Authority,” Business and Politics 1 (1999): 233–251CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. Congressional Record 78 (Washington, D.C., 73d Cong., 2d sess., 1934): 5614. New York Times, 1 March 1934, 1.

3. Other explanations are not addressed in this article. First, the “deflection” thesis maintains that Congress wanted to divert protectionist pressure from itself because interest-group lobbying had become intolerable. Bauer, Raymond, de Sola Pool, Ithiel, and Dexter, Lewis, American Business and Public Policy: The Politics of Foreign Trade (New York, 1963)Google Scholar; Destler, I. M., American Trade Politics: System Under Stress (New York, 1986)Google Scholar; and Nelson, Douglas, “Domestic Political Preconditions of U.S. Trade Policy,” Journal of Public Policy 9 (1986): 83–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar. However, Republicans, as the party of high tariffs, were exposed to the greatest political pressure in this area, but they were not the party that proposed or supported the delegation. Moreover, this explanation implies that Congress should delegate all but the most trivial policy obligations, which it clearly has not. Second, the “ideological” explanation maintains that Secretary of State Hull influenced political institutions and the political elite with his trade liberalism. Judith Goldstein, “The Impact of Ideas on Trade Policy: The Origins of U.S. Agricultural and Manufacturing Policies,” International Organization 43 (1989): 31–72. However, Hull's free-trade bias was at least partially shaped by his experience as a Democratic congressman, and many legislators shared it. Relatedly, the “Hull did it” explanation focuses on Hull's pivotal role in persuading Roosevelt to submit the RTAA to Congress. Butler, Michael, Cautious Visionary: Cordell Hull and Trade Reform, 1933–1937 (Kent, Ohio, 1998)Google Scholar; Cole, Wayne, Roosevelt and the Isolationists, 1932–45 (Nebraska, 1983)Google Scholar; Eckes, Alfred, Opening America's Market: U.S. Foreign Trade Policy Since 1776 (Chapel Hill, 1995)Google Scholar; Gellman, Irwin, Secret Affairs: Franklin Roosevelt, Cordell Hull, and Sumner Welles (Baltimore, 1995)Google Scholar; Leuchtenburg, William, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–40 (New York, 1963)Google Scholar; Perkins, Dexter, The New Age of Roosevelt, 1932–45 (Chicago, 1958)Google Scholar; and Schlesinger, Arthur Jr., The Coming of the New Deal (Boston, 1957)Google Scholar. Although Hull exercised critical influence on Roosevelt, this thesis fails to describe why congressional Democrats supported such a large delegation of policymaking authority to the President.

4. Under the 1828 Tariff of Abominations, the average tariff rate on dutiable goods rose to 61.7 percent. U.S. Bureau, Census, Historical Statistics of the United States 78 (Washington, D.C., 73d Cong., 2d sess., 1934), 888Google Scholar. See the following challenges to the prevailing wisdom that the Smoot-Hawley Tariff was the highest U.S. tariff ever: Eckes, Alfred, “Revisiting Smoot-Hawley,” Journal of Policy History 7 (1995): 295–310CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Hayford, Marc and Pasurka, Carl Jr., “Effective Rates of Protection and the Fordney-McCumber and Smoot-Hawley Tariff Acts,” Applied Economics 23 (1991): 1385–1392CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. League of Nations, World Economic Survey (1932–33), and Jones, Joseph, Tariff Retaliation Repercussions of the Hawley-Smoot Bill (Philadelphia, 1934)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6. Douglas Irwin estimates that a quarter of the 40 percent decline in imports following the Smoot-Hawley Tariff can be attributed to the combination of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff rates and deflation. “The Smoot-Hawley Tariff: A Quantitative Assessment,” Review of Economics and Statistics 80 (1998): 326–334CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7. Meltzer, Allan, “Monetary and Other Explanations of the Start of the Great Depression,” Journal of Monetary Economics 2 (1976): 455–471CrossRefGoogle Scholar. However, there is disagreement over the “true” economic consequences of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff. See Dornbusch, Rudiger and Fisher, Stanley, “The Open Economy: Implications for Monetary and Fiscal Policy,” in The American Business Cycle: Continuity and Change, ed. Gordon, Robert (Chicago, 1986)Google Scholar, and Eichengreen, Barry, “The Political Economy of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff,” in Research in Economic History, vol. 12, ed. Ransom, Roger (Connecticut, 1989): 1–43Google Scholar.

8. Schattschneider, E. E., Politics, Pressures, and the Tariff (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963)Google Scholar.

9. Baldwin, Robert, The Political Economy of U.S. Import Policy (Cambridge, Mass., 1985)Google Scholar; Beckett, Grace, The Reciprocal Trade Agreements Program (New York, 1941)Google Scholar; Goldstein, Judith and Lenway, Stefanie, “Interests or Institutions: An Inquiry into Congressional-ITC Relations,” International Studies Quarterly 33 (1989): 303–327CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Milner, Helen and Rosendorff, B. Peter, “Trade Negotiations, Information, and Domestic Politics: The Role of Domestic Groups, Economics and Politics 8 (1996): 145–189CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pastor, Robert, Congress and the Politics of U.S. Foreign Economic Policy, 1929–1976 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1980)Google Scholar; Pietro, Nivola, “Trade Policy: Refereeing the Playing Field,” in A Question of Balance: The President, the Congress, and Foreign Policy, ed. Mann, Thomas (Washington, D.C., 1990)Google Scholar; and Sundquist, James, The Decline and Resurgence of Congress (Washington, D.C., 1981)Google Scholar.

10. On the intense partisanship of tariff politics, see Calhoun, Charles, “Political Economy in the Gilded Age: The Republican Party's Industrial Policy,” Journal of Policy History 8 (1996): 291–309CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Epstein, David and O'Halloran, Sharyn, “The Partisan Paradox and the U.S. Tariff, 1877–1934,” International Organization 50 (1996): 301–324CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Irwin, Douglas, Against the Tide: An Intellectual History of Free Trade (Princeton, 1996)Google Scholar.

11. In the House, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff passed by 223 to 153 votes, and in the Senate by 44 to 42. In the Senate, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff was supported by thirty-nine Republicans and five Democrats. If three Senate Democrats had not crossed partisan lines to vote in favor of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, then it would not have passed. Congressional Record 72: 10789–90 and 10635. In the House, the RTAA was passed by 274 to 111 votes, and in the Senate by 57 to 33. Congressional Record 78: 5808 and 10395.

12. Baldwin, Robert, “The Changing Nature of U.S. Trade Policy since WWII,” in Structure and Evolution of Recent U.S. Trade Policy, ed. Baldwin, Robert and Krueger, Anne (Chicago, 1984)Google Scholar; Cuddington, John and McKinnon, Ronald, “Free Trade versus Protectionism: A Perspective,” in Tariffs, Quotas, and Trade: The Politics of Protectionism (San Francisco, 1979)Google Scholar; Gardner, Richard, Sterling Dollar Diplomacy, 3d ed. (New York, 1980)Google Scholar; Haggard, Stephan, “The Institutional Foundations of Hegemony: Explaining the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934,” International Organization 42 (1988): 91–119CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Lenway, Stefanie, The Politics of U.S. International Trade: Protection, Expansion, and Escape (Boston, 1985).Google Scholar

13. Secretary of State Blaine's 1890 quest for reciprocity is not comparable to the RTAA because it was not supported by Congress, was not a response to a depression, and was limited to agreements within the Western Hemisphere. The unsuccessful Kasson treaties negotiated under the 1897 Dingley Tariff also are not comparable to the RTAA because they required Senate approval and were not intended to be a depression remedy, as crisis theorists argue the RTAA was.

14. Cooper, Richard, “Trade Policy as Foreign Policy,” in U.S. Trade Policies in a Changing World Economy, ed. Stern, Robert (Cambridge, Mass., 1987)Google Scholar and Krasner, Stephen, “State Power and the Structure of International Trade,” World Politics 28 (1976): 317–347Google Scholar.

15. Zeiler, Thomas, Free Trade, Free World: America and the Advent of GATT (Chapel Hill, 1999)Google Scholar.

16. Undated article, “Toward a Democratic Tariff Policy,” Today (independent national weekly published in New York by Vincent Astor), in the Herbert Feis Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, container 21 (with documents primarily from 1934). Hereafter Feis Papers.

17. Hull did not serve in the 67th Congress, having been narrowly defeated by his Republican opponent in the 1920 election. Hull served on the Pensions and Civil Service Reform Committees during his first two terms as congressman, but thereafter served only on Ways and Means, indicating how salient tariff issues were to him. As Hull noted in his Memoirs (New York, 1948): 89: “I [have] devoted my life to a close study of tariffs, revenue, finance and economics.” See also Allen, William, “The International Trade Philosophy of Cordell Hull, 1907–1933,” American Economic Review 43 (1953): 107Google Scholar.

18. See the large proportion of correspondence in Hull's files that focus on trade matters, such as The Futility of General Increases in the Tariff by Professor C. Blackey and Analysis of U.S. Trade by J. Schwartzmann, in the Cordell Hull Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, container 33. Hereafter Hull Papers.

19. For accounts of the 1913 federal income tax and the 1916 Tariff Commission, see Hull, , Memoirs (1948)Google Scholar; Keller, Morton, Regulating a New Economy: Public Policy and Economic Change in America, 1900–1933 (Cambridge, Mass., 1990)Google Scholar; Kenkel, Joseph, Progressives and Protection: The Search for a Tariff Policy, 1866–1936 (Lanham, Md., 1983)Google Scholar; Schnietz, Karen, “Democrats' 1916 Tariff Commission: Responding to Dumping Fears and Illustrating the Consumer Costs of Protectionism,” Business History Review 72 (1998): 1–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Skowronek, Stephen, Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877–1920 (New York, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20. In total, thirty-eight Democratic legislators who had supported both the income tax and Tariff Commission were still in Congress in 1934; all but one, Carter Glass (D-Va.), supported the RTAA.

21. 3 March 1933 letter from Feis to Hull, Feis Papers, container 123.

22. 11 June 1933 telegram to Hull and 5 June 1933 letter from H. McBride to Hull, Hull Papers, container 34. For detailed accounts of the fight between Hull and economic nationalists over the RTAA, see Butler, Cautious Vicionary; Cole, Roosevelt and the Isolationists; and Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt: Launching the New Deal (Boston, 1973)Google Scholar.

23. New York Times, 30 December 1933, 3. Few historians have sought to explain the cause of Roosevelt's transformation on the RTAA; indeed, in many accounts, the first attempt at passing the RTAA is more extensively discussed than the second, successful attempt. For instance, Davis, Kenneth, FDR: The New Deal Years, 1933–37 (New York, 1986)Google Scholar; Flynn, John, The Roosevelt Myth (New York, 1948)Google Scholar; Rauch, Basil, A History of the New Deal, 1933–38 (New York, 1944)Google Scholar; and Schlesinger, The Coming of the New Deal.

24. Among the resolutions Hull obtained was an Argentinean peace declaration and an agreement to lower tariffs via reciprocal trade agreements. For favorable publicity, see 20 December 1933 letter from Rep. T. Ford (D-Calif.) to Hull, and 26 December 1933 telegram from R. Patchin to Hull, Hull Papers, container 36. For press accounts, see the New York Times, 16 December 1933, 11; 29 December 1933, 18; and 31 December 1933, IV, 8. Butler, Cautious Visionary, 85–93, and Gellman, Secret Affair, 51–55, provide extensive accounts of the conference.

25. For an account of the London World Economic Conference and Moley's infamous “bombshell” message, see Butler, Cautious Visionary, 46–81.

26. 31 January 1934 letter from Hull to J. Jones; 1 February 1934 letter from D. Roper to Hull; and February 1934 “Report on Quota System,” Hull Papers, containers 35 and 36. Hull, Memoirs, 355–57.

27. 10 February 1934 National Press Club Address, Hull Papers, container 36. For publicity, see New York Times, 11 February 1934, 26 and VI, 4.

28. Congressional Record 78: 5792; 5794; 5796; 5799–802; 5807; 5808.

29. Congressional Record 78: 5799. Note that the renewal provision gave Congress a powerful oversight tool to use against an erring President, an important feature in such an innovative delegation, by even a heavily Democratic Congress to a Democratic President.

30. Congressional Record 78: 3697; 5450; 5546; 5609; 5614; 5618; 5643; 5646–47; 5649; 5652–57; 5670; 5778; 5788; 8987; 8989; 8994; 10072; 10074; 10077; 10079; 10187; 10192–93; 10354–56; 10358; 10360; 10378; and 10711. U.S. House of Representatives, Report No. 1000 on the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act 78 (Washington, D.C., 73d Cong., 2d sess., 1934), 2–4. Hereafter House Report. Report of the House Ways and Means Committee, Hearings on the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act 78 (Washington, D.C., 73d Cong., 2d sess., 1934): 1: 3–4; 62–64. Hereafter Ways & Means Hearings. Report of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, Hearings on the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act 78 (Washington, D.C., 73d Cong., 2d sess., 1934): 26–27; 37–48; 120–22. Hereafter Finance Hearings.

31. Congressional Record 78: 3698; 5450; 5650; 5653; 5778; 8988; 8990; 9129; 9145; 9613; 10080; 10195; 10361. House Report, 5–7. Ways & Means Hearings 1: 3–4; 2: 13; 3: 85–86; 5: 24–28. Finance Hearings, 49–56.

32. Finance Hearings, 34. See also Congressional Record 78: 3698; 5651; 5655–56; 9346; 9814; 9817. For partisan tariff claims made during earlier legislative debates, see Schnietz (1998).

33. Congressional Record 78: 5448; 5458; 5546; 5613; 9135; 9255; 9559–60; 9568; 9584; 9590; 9597; 9699; 10189; 10197; 10202; 10212; 10215. House Report, 23–28. Ways & Means Hearings 1: 15–18. Article II, section 2, paragraph 2 of the U.S. Constitution gives the President the “power by and with the advice of the Senate to make treaties, providing two-thirds of the Senators present concur.”

34. Ways & Means Hearings, 4: 24–34. Legal challenges to the flexible tariff provisions were made on two bases. First, the limited Executive authority to adjust tariff rates under section 315 of the 1922 Tariff Act and section 336 of the 1930 Tariff Act violated Congress' constitutional power to lay and collect taxes. Second, the flexible tariff was adopted for the express purpose of protecting U.S. industries, not for revenue purposes. The delegation embodied in the flexible tariff was upheld in Hampton & Co. v. U.S. (1928), (276 U.S. 394) by the Supreme Court on the precedent of power conferred by Congress on the ICC. Other cases upholding the flexible tariff delegation include Frisher & Co., Inc, et al. v. Bakelite Corporation et al., 39 F.2d 247 (1930); U.S. v Fox River Butter Co., 20 CCPA (1932); and U.S. v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 63 Treasury Decisions 47 (1933).

35. Congressional Record 78: 5609; 5625; 9130; 10394 and House Report: 28–29.

36. U.S. Senate, Report No. 871 on the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act (Washington, D.C., 73d Cong., 2d sess., 1934). Hereafter Senate Report.

37. Congressional Record 78: 8990 and 8996. Roosevelt established the notice procedures through Executive Order No. 6750 of 27 June 1934.

38. Department of State, Treaty Information, no. 51, December 1933, 6. New York Times, 18 January 1934, 41, and 22 May 1934, 5. Congressional Record 78: 9590.

39. Congressional Record 78: 10363–95.

40. Finance Hearing, 157–390.

41. U.S. House of Representatives, Ways and Means Committee Papers, National Archives, Record Group 233, container 185. Hereafter Ways & Means Papers.

42. Senate Finance Committee Papers, National Archives, Record Group 46, containers 60 and 131. Hereafter Senate Finance Papers.

43. In opposition, see 1 September 1940 letter from Sen. K. Pittman (R-Nev.) to L. Ellsworth, in the Key Pittman Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, container 157. Hereafter Pittman Papers. In support, see 4 April 1934 letter G. Bauer (National Automobile Chamber of Commerce) to Sen. W. Borah (R-Idaho), in the William Borah Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, container 402. Hereafter Borah Papers.

44. There are four welfare effects associated with a tariff: (1) the transfer of consumer surplus to protected domestic producers in the form of higher prices; (2) the transfer of consumer and foreign producer surpluses to the government in the form of the tariff duty; (3) the consumer surplus lost through inefficient domestic production; and (4) the consumer loss associated with having less supply of the dutied product than would exist under free trade. Stolper, Wolfgang and Samuelson, Paul, “Protection and Real Wages,” Review of Economic Studies 9 (1941): 58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45. Some of this decrease is attributable to the effect of inflation on a system comprised largely of specific tariff rates.

46. During House hearings on the RTAA, Tariff Commission Chair O'Brien also noted: “Since there seems to be no worry about the President's use of power in raising tariffs, I will address my remarks to the President's possible use of power in lowering tariffs” (Ways & Means Hearings, 2: 1).

47. Nelson, “Domestic Political Preconditions of U.S. Trade Policy”; Schattschneider, Politics, Pressures, and the Tariff; Taussig, F. W., The Tariff History of the United States (New York, 1931)Google Scholar; and U.S. Tariff Commission, The Tariff and Its History (Washington, D.C., 1934)Google Scholar.

48. The difference in electoral constituencies for the President and members of Congress yields systematic differences in their policy preferences. Burns, James, The Deadlock of Democracy (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963)Google Scholar; Moe, Terry, “Political Institutions: The Neglected Side of the Story,” Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 6 (1990): 213–253CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Weingast, Barry, Shepsle, Kenneth, and Johnsen, Christopher, “The Political Economy of Benefits and Costs: A Neoclassical Approach to Distributive Politics,” Journal of Political Economy 89 (1981): 642–664CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a formal demonstration of how Presidentially-led tariff-setting resulted in lower tariffs, see Schnietz, Karen, “To Delegate or Not to Delegate: Institutional Choices in the Regulation of Foreign Trade, 1916–1934,” Ph.D. dissertation (University of California Berkeley, 1994)Google Scholar.

49. Today article, “Toward a Democratic Tariff Policy,” Feis Papers, container 21.

50. 20 November 1930 Feis memorandum, Feis Papers, container 123.

51. 3 September 1934 letter from W. Coad to Sen. G. Norris (R-Neb.), in the George Norris Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, container 59. Hereafter Norris Papers.

52. 19 February 1940 letter from V. Driscol to Sen. C. McNary (R-Ore.), in the Charles McNary Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, container 44. Hereafter McNary Papers.

53. William Stone in Finance Hearings, 285 and 283. Similarly, see 6 March 1934 letter from J. Belger to Rep. R. Doughton (D-N.C.), Ways & Means Papers, container 185. For a formal articulation of how the RTAA eliminated logrolling, see O'Halloran, Sharyn, Politics, Process, and American Trade Policy (Ann Arbor, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54. Quotes in Congressional Record 78: 10214; 10202; 5448; and 10212, respectively.

55. Between 1890 and 1909, the U.S. entered into nineteen so-called reciprocal trade agreements. Ten were entered into under section 3 of the Republican 1890 McKinley Tariff Act, which authorized the President to impose penalty duties on five commodities when imported from countries whose duties on U.S. products were “unequal and unreasonable.” Despite the reciprocity provision's name, it was based on a principle of penalizing, rather than inviting, tariff reductions by offering corresponding reductions; it was abolished by the Democratic 1894 Wilson-Gorman Tariff. Nine agreements were negotiated under section 3 of the Republican 1897 Dingley Tariff, which authorized the President to adjust tariffs on items when imported from countries that granted reciprocal concessions. This provision was abolished by the Republican 1909 Payne-Aldrich Tariff. These nineteen “reciprocal trade agreements” differed from the RTAA in that Presidential authorization was highly limited, and they raised most tariffs.

56. Report “Reciprocity under Conditional and Unconditional Most-Favored-Nation Treaties,” 19, forwarded to Hull with a 2 March 1933 cover letter from T. Page (Vice-Chair Tariff Commission), Hull Papers, container 33; 17 February 1934 Feis Notes, “Some Observations,” Feis Papers, container 124; Hull, Memoirs, 252; 26 April 1934 letter from Byrd to Hull, Hull Papers, container 36.

57. 1 May 1934 letter to G. Bauer, 4 March 1934 letter to C. Curtis, and Borah's appeals to business leaders, in the Borah Papers, container 402.

58. March 1934 speech to Maine State Republican Convention by Sen. W. White (R-Me.), in the Wallace White Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, container 67; 3 August 1934 letter from Borah to W. Weisenbeerger (National Association of Manufacturers), Borah Papers, container 402.

59. 23 March 1934 letter from Moley to Feis, Feis Papers, container 21.

60. 17 February 1939 letter from McNary to L. Nichols (Secretary Pacific Grange); 17 December 1939 letter from McNary to W. Holt; and 4 April 1938 telegram from McNary to H. Oliver, all in McNary Papers, container 44. Similarly, see 5 August 1935 letter from Norris to B. Berkheimer, Norris Papers, container 59.

61. 16 December 1934 letter from Hull to McNary, McNary Papers, container 44. See also Borah's replies to constituent appeals on the 1935 proposed pulp wool tariff reduction, Borah Papers, container 433.

62. Ways & Means Papers, container 185.

63. 26 March 1934 telegram from Turner and Seymour Manufacturing Company to House Ways and Means Committee; and 28 March 1934 letter from W. Coleman (American Flyer Toy Company) to Rep. Doughton, Ways & Means Papers, container 185.

64. Borah Papers, container 400; 2 January 1940 letter from F. Ransom (Eastern & Western Lumber) to McNary, McNary Papers, container 45.

65. 1 April 1934 article, “Dangerous Tariff Experiment,” by Henry Fletcher, The Awakener: A National Organ of Uncensored Opinion (published in New York City), Borah Papers, container 811.

66. Empirical support has been offered for this analysis. Although legislators did not take into account the export dependence of their districts in votes on tariff-policy prior to the RTAA, they did do so after the RTAA. Gilligan, Michael, Empowering Exporters: Reciprocity, Delegation, and Collective Action in American Trade Policy (Ann Arbor, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Similarly, district-level export-dependence, more than partisanship, affected voting behavior on several trade bills in 1953 and 1962. Bailey, Michael, Weingast, Barry, and Goldstein, Judy, “The Institutional Roots of American Trade Policy: Politics, Coalitions and International Trade,” World Politics 49 (1998): 309–338CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In addition, empirical evidence has been offered to show that private interests understood how fundamentally the RTAA would alter trade policy outcomes; investors in firms heavily dependent on export sales in 1934 bid up the stock prices of those firms significantly following news of the RTAA's likely passage. Karen Schnietz, “Investor Response to Trade Regulatory Change: The 1934 Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act,” Working Paper, Rice University.

67. Washington Post, 3 March 1934, 2; 1 June 1934 letter from Capper to W. White, in the William Allen White Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, container 214; 8 March 1934 telegram from G. Bauer to Rep. H. Rainey (D-Ill.), Ways & Means Papers, container 404; 20 December 1933 letter from Ford to Hull, Hull Papers, container 35.

68. 30 April 1934 letter from G. Bauer to Borah, Borah Papers, container 402.

69. Hull Memoirs, 352 (emphasis added); 30 June 1934 letter from Rankin to Hull, Hull Papers, container 36 (emphasis added); 16 December 1939 letter from Hull to McNary, McNary Papers, container 44.

70. See the large volume of correspondence relating to the 1937 or 1940 RTA Extension Acts (sometimes more voluminous than correspondence relating to the 1934 RTAA) in the following collections: Pittman Papers, containers 157–58; Borah Papers, container 484; McNary Papers, container 45; and the Robert M. La Follette Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, containers 315 and 346.

The evidence left by Democratic members of the 73d Congress is not as voluminous as historians might like. This is partly because only a few manuscript collections exist and, when they do, few contain much material from 1934. For example, the papers of Representative Emanuel Cellar (D-N.Y.) contain no documents on trade issues prior to 1935. The manuscript collection of Congressman Ross Collins (D-Miss.) has no documents relating to the RTAA and little political correspondence at all. Tom Connally's (D-Tex.) papers are extremely sparse in 1933–34, with no documents on the Senator's feelings about the RTAA. The William McAdoo Papers (D-Calif.) are extensive, but, unfortunately, McAdoo was gravely ill during the period the RTAA was debated and there is no evidence about his feelings on the RTAA or most other legislative matters from late 1933 to mid-1934. The manuscript collection of Senator Key Pittman (D-Nev.) is extensive, but nonetheless contains no materials relating to the RTAA. And, finally, the papers of Representative Henry Rainey (D-Ill.) contain no correspondence whatsoever for 1934.

There are two additional possibilities for the dearth of evidence left by Democratic legislators. First, recall that the RTAA moved with extraordinary speed through Congress. There was little time for legislators to ponder the measure, let alone accumulate or send much correspondence regarding the RTAA to constituents and confidants. Moreover, the second session of the 73d Congress, like the first, considered and passed a large volume of major legislation. The burden of attending simultaneously to many bills is likely to have contributed to the relatively few letters left by Democratic legislators on the RTAA. Fortunately, Hull, a few Democratic legislators, some prominent Republican opponents, and many interest groups left sufficient evidence of how the RTAA's specific structural features were expected to alter future trade policy outcomes.