Life magazine’s April 22, 1897, issue imagines Ways and Means Chairman Nelson Dingley’s tariff as an act of aggression to the world outside the United States. The swiftly enacted Dingley Tariff Act of 1897 sharply raised duties on an assortment of products—from sugar and tin cans to petroleum, locomotives, and matches—by an average of 57 percent. This cartoon takes aim, though, at the 25 percent proposed duty on imported books and works of art. Academics were particularly aghast because the tariff on specialized academic publications hardly helped U.S. authors—there often was no competition to speak of—and undermined libraries’ ability to support the public good.
