The Sock Tariff
A local streetcar driver challenges McKinley’s protectionist rhetoric after a surprise tax bill on his mother's gift from Ireland.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
There is a street car driver in Washington named Doran, says the Washington correspondent of the St. Louis Republic. He is a native of Ireland and has been in this country about six years. A cousin of Mike’s recently arrived in this country, bringing a gift from Mike’s mother: twelve pairs of woolen socks she knitted herself. The socks were valued at about twenty cents a pair, but at the custom house, Mike’s cousin was assessed a twenty-five cent tariff duty per pair. When Mike had to refund the three dollars his cousin paid, it set him thinking. He subsequently addressed a letter to Governor McKinley: 'Dear Sir—I read your speeches in the house of representatives... in which you asserted and made me believe that the foreigners paid our taxes. My mother sent me a dozen pairs of socks from Ireland a few days ago... my cousin, who brought them to me, had to pay twenty-five cents a pair tariff duties on the socks at the New York custom house. Will you please be kind enough to tell me to what foreign government I shall apply to have that three dollars refunded to me?'
“If the foreigner pays the tax, as you say he does, I am entitled to get my money back, but I do not know just exactly to what foreign government to apply.”
This 1892 account highlights the timeless tension between economic protectionist theory and the actual cost-of-living burden placed on working people. While the tariff debate has shifted to modern trade wars, the frustration of the 'consumer' paying the tax rather than the 'foreign interest' remains a persistent political grievance.
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