One of the most enormous acts of isolationism in U.S. history was committed in June 1930: passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. Its purpose was to give U.S. producers a noncompetitive monopoly of the U.S. market, regardless of the consequences abroad. It was the brain-child of Utah's Senator Reed Smoot, a Mormon Apostle, and of Oregon's Willis Chatman Hawley, a slow-witted, powerful man, once a champion woodcutter in Oregon, who had risen from the post of principal of Umpqua Academy at Wilbur, Ore. to the chairmanship of the House Ways & Means...
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