Tariff Club

Black text on dark orange background. 

This button is made in commemoration of a dinner held by the Tariff Club in 1908.  The Tariff Club was a large organization and a wing of the Republican Party. The faction focused heavily on tariff reform - an key issue in the turn of the century political science. As a whole the club heavily supported the presidency of William Howard Taft and his 1908 campaign as well as the Theodore Roosevelt years

In the early part of the twentieth century party lines were split among tariffs. Democrats, fearing the rise of corporate trusts, pushed for lowered tariffs. Republicans sought to keep tariffs high in order to allow companies to compete financially on the world market. In 1908 Taft actually pushed to lowered tariffs dramatically to bring about political unity through compromise. This compromise and lowering of over 600 tariffs is part of which caused Theodore Roosevelt to form his own political party, "The Bull-Moose Party" and run for the presidency in 1912.