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Culture Wars: The U.S. Art Lobby and Congressional Tariff Legislation during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2010

Robert E. May
Robert E. May
Affiliation:
Purdue University
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Abstract

From 1883 to World War I, disputes over art tariffs roiled America's art community, drawing preeminent painters, sculptors, architects, and illustrators into national lobbying campaigns. This essay exposes artists’ agency in tariff politics, illuminates their ideologies, and explains congressional debates, legislation, and diplomacy regarding U.S. art schedules, while demonstrating how the art tariff imbroglio often challenged longstanding partisan patterns in Washington with respect to tariff protectionism. It also contributes to Atlantic world studies by exploring how artists’ anti-tariff positions derived from transoceanic systems of art pedagogy and exhibitions and by showing how protectionists (including a minority of artists) capitalized upon persistent popular stereotypes of national cultural inferiority. Finally, this essay argues that growing disparities of wealth and class sensitivities increasingly affected turn-of-the-century tariff discourse. Protectionists demanded punitive retribution against the international collecting activities of America's ostentatious plutocrats; free-art proponents craved tariff reforms for the didactic purpose of elevating popular taste through exposure to European masterworks.

Type
Essays
Information
The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , January 2010 , pp. 37 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2010

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References

2 James Carroll Beckwith Diary, Feb. 5–6, 1884, National Academy of Design, New York City, Archives of American Art Microfilm, Roll 4798; Richard Watson Gilder to Perry Belmont, Jan. 26, 1883 (copy), Gilder Letter Press Book, vol. 1, Richard Watson Gilder Collection, New York Public Library, New York City; “An act to reduce internal-revenue taxation, and for other purposes,” U.S. Statutes at Large, 22, 47th Cong., 2nd sess. (Mar. 3, 1883), 513, 521–22; Blashfield, Edwin Howland, Mural Painting in America (New York, 1928), 29Google Scholar; Belmont, Perry, An American Democrat: The Recollections of Perry Belmont, 2nd ed. (New York, 1891), 608Google Scholar, 611–12. Ad valorem assessments tax a fixed percentage of the monetary worth of items.

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17 Chase quote in New York World, Apr. 2, 1883, repr. in Orcutt, “Buy American?,” 82; Milwaukee Sentinel, Jan. 20, 1884; Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, Oct. 20, 1883, 130–31; St. Louis Globe-Democrat, May 2, 1884; Congressional Record, 48th Cong., 1st sess., 148, 225, 423, 906, 1373, 1884, 2406, 3076, 3514.

18 Albert Bierstadt to Dr. Miller, Mar. 11, 1886, in Grover Cleveland Presidential Papers, series 2, reel 31, Library of Congress (hereafter, LC); Letters of David Neal (Dec. 14, 1885), F. S. Church (Dec. 7, 1885), J. Alden Weir (Dec. 10, 1885), Augustus Saint-Gaudens (Nov. 30, 1885), and Frederick Dielman (Dec. 15, 1885), all to the editors of Critic, Dec. 19, 1885, 291, 293, 294.

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22 Edwin Howland Blashfield to Richard Watson Gilder, Nov. 23, 1914, The Century Collection, New York Public Library.

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24 Hiram Powers to the New York Evening Post, Feb. 24, 1867, quoted in San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, Apr. 18, 1867; “A Chinese Wall for American Art,” Century, Mar. 1884, 784; Susan N. Carter, Principal, Woman's Art School, Cooper Union, to the editor, Nov. 20, 1885, Critic, Dec. 19, 1885, 290.

25 A. Dalla-Valle to Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, May 20, 1883; Levi P. Morton to Frelinghuysen, Dec. 21, 1883, Jan. 22, 1884; Baron von Schaeffer to Frelinghuysen, Jan. 14, 1884, Thre. de Bounder de Melsbroeck to Frelinghuysen, Jan. 28, 1884, all in U.S. House, A report from the Secretary of State relative to tariff discrimination against works of foreign artists, 48th Cong., 1st sess., H. Exec. Doc. 111, 1–8. In 1881, the Department of State had requested the U.S. Solicitor-General to rule on whether tariff provisions on art privileging U.S. artists abroad violated the 1871 treaty. The latter ruled against Italy's claim on technical grounds. S. F. Phillips to the Secretary of State, Oct. 17, 1881, in U.S. House, Official Opinions of the Attorneys-General of the United States…, 51st Cong., 1 sess., H. Misc. Doc. 237, 223–28.

26 Congressional Record, 48th Cong., 1st sess., 3201, 4294–97; Henry Blumenthal, France and the United States: Their Diplomatic Relations, 1789–1914 (Chapel Hill, 1970), 177. Opponents of the measure also included 62 Republicans and 4 congressmen with alternative party identifications. Party affiliations for all congressional votes noted in this article are derived from Martis, Kenneth C., The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress, 1789–1989 (New York, 1989).Google Scholar Belmont initiated the House's consideration of the art tariff on Dec. 11, 1883, when he introduced a bill that was referred to the Ways and Means committee. Congressional Record, 48th Cong., 1st sess., 99.

27 Undated telegram, Frederick T. Frelinghuysen to Levi P. Morton (marked received on May 23, 1884); Morton to Jules Ferry, May 23, 1884 (copy); and Morton to Frelinghuysen, May 28, May 30 (telegram, cipher), 1884, in U.S. Department of State, Despatches from U.S. Ministers to France, M34, roll 97, NA. Although the Congressional Record sometimes noted congressmen laughing or applauding, it made no such notation following the defeat of H.R. 6751. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, May 31, 1884, 226, claimed that France and Italy would likely execute threats to retaliate with 75 percent export duties on U.S. art produced in their countries and ban U.S. art students from their galleries and schools.

28 Irwin, Will, May, Earl Chapin and Hotchkiss, Joseph, A History of the Union League Club of New York City (New York, 1952), 17–21Google Scholar, 56, 85–96, 108; Congressional Record, 48th Cong., 1st sess., 2406; Carrie T. Hayter, Librarian, Union League Club (quoting the report of March 1885) to Robert E. May, email Sept. 24, 2007; Century, Apr. 1885, 953–54; J. Carroll Beckwith statement to the House Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House, Revision of the Tariff, Dec. 30, 1889, 51st Cong., 1st Sess., H. Misc. Doc. 176, 616–17; Kenyon Cox statement, in U.S. House, Revision of the Tariff, 617.Google Scholar Allusions in this piece to trustees of the Metropolitan are from a list in Tomkins, Calvin, Merchants and Masterpieces: The Story of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1970), 363–65.Google Scholar

29 Critic, Dec. 19, 1885, 290–94. Weller's letter was forwarded to the magazine by Perry Belmont.

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32 Resolution of the Society of American Artists, “A Breach in the Chinese Wall,” Century, Mar. 1884, 33. Also Century, Feb. 1883, 620; Apr. 1885, 953; Mar. 1887, 784. “Art No Luxury,” Nation, July 18, 1889, 46; Milwaukee Sentinel, Jan. 20, 1884, 4; Richard Watson Gilder to Representative William M. Springer, Feb. 2, 1893 (letterbook copy), Gilder Papers; Howard Pyle to the editors, Dec. 9, 1885, Critic, Dec. 19, 1885, 293; Henry G. Marquand to his mother, Sept. 17, 1878, Henry Marquand Papers, Princeton University Library; Marquand, Henry, “The Tariff on Works of Art,” Princeton Review, no. 2 (1884): 65.Google Scholar

33 Congressional Record, 48th Cong., 1st sess., 4297, 4296; Philadelphia Evening Call, May 1888 (no exact date provided), quoted in Revision of the Tariff, 621.

34 DePew's comments summarized in Thomas W. Ludlow, letter to the editor, New York Times, Feb. 12, 1887; Donaldson, “Protection to American Art,” 98.

35 Donaldson, “Protection to American Art,” 101–02, 105 (quotations).

36 “The Difference between a Painting and a Pound of Sugar,” Century, Apr. 1885, 953–54; “Chinese Wall,” 784; Marquand, “The Tariff on Works of Art,” 148–49; “Art No Luxury,” 46.

37 Howard Pyle to the editors, Critic, Dec. 19, 1885, 293.

38 Conn, Steven, Museums and American Intellectual Life, 1876–1926 (Chicago, 1998), 17Google Scholar; Morgan, , New Muses, 13Google Scholar; Alexander, , Here the Country Lies, 1–27Google Scholar; “Art and the People,” Harper's Weekly, Apr. 29, 1893, 393; Congressional Record, 48th Cong., 1st sess., 4297. One magazine, however, reported opposition to a free-art exhibition for New York's Lower East Side poor: People wondered whether the poor would attend and, if they did, whether they would “‘resent the display of the possessions of the rich.’”; Bernheim, A. B., “Results of Picture-Exhibitions in Lower New York,” Forum, July 1895, 610.Google Scholar

39 Frank Waller to Perry Belmont, Dec. 9, 1885; “Art No Luxury,” 46; letters of J. Carroll Beckwith, William Sartain, and Isaac Eugene Craig to the editors of Critic, Dec. 19, 1885, 193–94, 290–91; Millet, “The Duty on Fine Arts,” Harper's Weekly, Jan. 10, 1885, 27; Thomas W. Ludlow to the editor, New York Times, Feb. 12, 1887, 3.

40 Rates of Duty, 47, 354; R. Swain Gifford to the editors, Critic, Dec. 19, 1885, 290–91; Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, Dec. 20, 1884, 279.

41 J. F. Phayre to Joseph Pennell, Mar. 20, 1885, Joseph Pennell Papers, Harry Ransom Humanities Center, University of Texas, Austin; Pennell to H. Burns Weston, [Oct.?] 22, 1912, Contemporary Club Speaker Files, Thornton Oakley Collection, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

42 “G.” to the editor, Scribner's Monthly, Feb. 1881, 634; Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, Oct. 20, 1883, 130; Chicago Sunday Inter Ocean, Apr. 7, 1889, Apr. 20, 1890; New Orleans Daily Picayune, Dec. 10, 1890; Minutes of the Board of Directors, Sept. 12, 1881, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Papers, Archives of American Art, roll P45; R. Swain Gifford to the editors, Critic, Dec. 19, 1885, 291.

43 Terrill, , The Tariff, Politics, and American Foreign Policy, 137–41, 161Google Scholar; Dobson, John M., “The McKinley Tariff Act” in Encyclopedia of U.S. Foreign Relations, ed. Jentleson, Bruce W. and Paterson, Thomas G. (New York, 1997), 3:126Google Scholar; New York Times, Feb. 6, 1891, 5; New Orleans Daily Picayune, Mar. 27, 1882, 2. Harrison's letter accepting his nomination called protective tariffs “constitutional, wholesome, and necessary” and argued that treasury surpluses should be applied to ending interest on the public debt rather than reducing tariff revenues. Benjamin Harrison to M. M. Estee and others, Sept. 11, 1888, in Speeches of Benjamin Harrison …, comp. Charles Hedges (New York, 1892), 109–10.

44 Beckwith Diary, Apr. 5, Nov. 17, 24, Dec. 20, 28, 29, 1899.

45 Kenyon Cox to Robert Underwood Johnson, Dec. 11, 1889, Century Collection; Testimony of Beckwith, Cox, and Coffin, Dec. 30, 1889, in U.S. House, Revision of the Tariff, 616–19. Donaldson submitted a formal written rebuttal to the committee, condemning the free-art crusade as a foreign “raid” “dictated by … art dealers and rich men who want luxuries as cheaply as possible” in an alliance with “zealous” young men. Denying that he had secretly conspired to raise the art rates in 1883, he emphasized that they had been debated before the 1882 Tariff Commission. He questioned the Union League Club poll's legitimacy, since it represented fewer than half of America's artists, and he asserted that the 30 percent duty had already fostered numbers of home-grown artists. Thomas Donaldson statement, in U.S. House Revision of the Tariff, 619–23.

46 Whiting, Lilian, Kate Field: A Record (Boston, 1899), 29Google Scholar, 32, 46, 84, 100, 123, 150, 152, 162, 182–85, 319, 344, 402, 474; Scharnhorst, Gary, “James and Kate Field,” Henry James Review 22 (Spring 2001): 200–06CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Scharnhorst, , “Kate Field and the New York Tribune,” American Periodicals: A Journal of History, Criticism, and Bibliography 14:2 (2004): 159–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Weinberg, “Career of Francis Davis Millet,” 5; Kate Field to Benjamin Harrison, Mar. 21, 1889, Benjamin Harrison Presidential Papers, series 1, reel 19, LC.

47 Scharnhorst, “James and Kate Field,” 200–06; Beckwith Diary, Feb. 5, 9, 1890; Kate Field to Benjamin Harrison, Mar. 21, 1889, Harrison Presidential Papers.

48 Payne to Field, n.d., in Whiting, Kate Field: A Record, 486–87; Beckwith Diary, Mar. 30, 1890. Beckwith recorded a tariff committee meeting with Field on April 6. Beckwith Diary, Apr. 6, 1890.

49 Congressional Record, 51st Congress, 1st sess., 2846–47, 5061–64; U.S. House, A Bill to Reduce the Revenue and Equalize Duties on Imports, and for Other Purposes, 51st Cong., 1st sess., H. Rep. 1466, 16; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Early Memories (New York, 1913), 270–74Google Scholar; Garraty, John A., Henry Cabot Lodge: A Biography (New York, 1958), 113.Google Scholar During the same session, President Harrison asked Congress to end discrimination against foreign artworks. Senate Journal, 51st Cong., 1st sess., 410.

50 Congressional Record, 51st Cong., 1st sess., 6207; Henry Cabot Lodge to Kenyon Cox, Ke-nyon Cox Papers, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University; “Minutes of the Board of Directors, Apr. 14, 1890, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, roll P45; Congressional Record, 51st Cong., 1st sess., 10,050, 10,768; U.S. Senate, Tariff Acts Passed by the Congress, 358, 367; New York Times, Apr. 6, 1892.

51 Boston Daily Advertiser, Oct. 7, 1890; Beckwith Diary, Nov. 25, 1891, Jan. 5, May 1, 1892; Chicago Daily Inter Ocean, Dec. 1, 1891; Ward, Susan Hayes, “The Art Congress and Other Notes,” Independent, May 26, 1892, 7Google Scholar; Harper's Weekly, May 14, 1892, 159.

52 New York Times, Apr. 6, 1892; Ward, “Art Congress,” 7. T. E. Waggaman and C. M. Foulke were the two private collectors opening their galleries.

53 Beckwith Diary, May 16, 17, 1892; Portland Morning Oregonian, May 18, 1892; Ward, “Art Congress,” 7; James Cardinal Gibbons to Kate Field (n.d.), George William Curtis to Field, May 13, 1892, in Whiting, , Kate Field: A Record, 489, 492.Google Scholar

54 Ward, “The Art Congress,” 7; Critic, May 28, 1892, 307; Congressional Record, 52st Cong., 1st sess., 4401, 2nd sess., 5.

55 Richard Watson Gilder to William M. Springer, Feb. 2, 1893, J. Carroll Beckwith to Gilder, Oct. 27, 1893 (letterbook copies), Gilder Papers; New York Times, Dec. 21, 1893; Albert Bierstadt to Grover Cleveland, Nov. 29, 1893, Grover Cleveland Presidential Papers, series 2, reel 81; Beckwith Diary, Sept. 1, 1893. For the Gilder-Cleveland relationship, see Cleveland to Gilder, Mar. 11, 1888, and Allan Nevins's opinion in Letters of Grover Cleveland, 1850–1908, ed. Allan Nevins (Boston, 1933), 176n176. Beckwith erred in attributing Cleveland's election to the McKinley Tariff; see Kleppner, Paul, The Third Electoral System, 1853–1892: Parties, Voters, and Political Cultures (Chapel Hill, 1979), 304–06.Google Scholar

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57 New York Times, Dec. 21, 1893, Jan. 3, 1894, 4, Jan. 9, 1894, 8; Congressional Record, Jan. 9, 1894; Beckwith Diary, Jan. 1, 3, 7, 10, 1894.

58 Welch, , Grover Cleveland, 135–37Google Scholar; Terrill, , The Tariff, Politics, and American Foreign Policy, 192Google Scholar; Taussig, , Tariff History, 290Google Scholar; Kenyon Cox to Robert Underwood Johnson, May 10, 1894, Century Collection; U.S. Senate, Tariff Acts Passed by the Congress, 445; New York Times, June 16, 1895; Belmont, , American Democrat, 610.Google Scholar Believing that the final legislation no longer represented a genuine downward reform of rates, the president allowed the measure to become law without his signature, after denouncing the alterations in a letter to Wilson that was read to the House. Taussig gives the party breakdown in the House in 1894 as 320 Democrats and 126 Republicans, as compared to a 44 Democrat–38 Republican split in the Senate.

59 Kleppner, Paul, Continuity and Change in Electoral Politics, 1893–1928 (Westport, CT, 1987), 111Google Scholar; Terrill, , The Tariff, Politics, and American Foreign Policy, 198Google Scholar; Gould, Lewis L., The Presidency of William McKinley (Lawrence, KS, 1980), 27Google Scholar, 40–44; Milwaukee Sentinel, Feb. 28, 1897, 7.

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61 Salt Lake City, Utah, , Salt Lake Semi-Weekly Tribune, Mar. 30, 1897Google Scholar; Bangor, Maine, , Daily Whig and Courier, July 7, 1897Google Scholar; New York Times, Apr. 9, 1897, 12; U.S. Senate, Comparison of the Tariffs of 1897, 1894, and 1890, 55th Cong., 1st sess., S. Doc. 192, pt. 1, 48, 58–59. The act was named for Maine Republican representative Nelson Dingley Jr., chair of Ways and Means in the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Congresses.

62 Alexander, John W., “Folly of Tariff on Art,” Brush and Pencil 9 (Jan. 1902): 235CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Congressional Record, 57th Cong., 1st sess., 185; Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 25, 1902; New York Times, Sept. 21, 1902, 13 (Johnson's statement); John Hay to Edwin Austin Abbey, Feb. 1, 1899, in Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary (New York, 1969), 3:140; Elizabeth R. Pennell to Robert Underwood Johnson, Apr. 2, 1898, Century Magazine Correspondence, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.; New York Daily Tribune, Oct. 28, 1904; “Mr. Carroll Beckwith on the Tariff on Art,” Outlook, Nov. 26, 1904, 755–56; James Carroll Beckwith to Richard Watson Gilder, Dec. 8, 1904, Gilder Collection; Lyman, Ambrose W., “The Duty on Art,” New York Times, Sept. 10, 1902, 8.Google Scholar At the time of his Tribune interview, Beckwith was vice president of the New York Municipal Art Commission.

63 Brush and Pencil 16 (Sept. 1905): 83–84; James Carroll Beckwith to Richard Watson Gilder, Dec. 3, 8, 18, 1904, Gilder Collection; Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 1, 1905, 8; New York Herald, Dec. 28, 1905, 11.

64 As early as 1886, the Century attributed western support for high art tariffs to the class-related logic that art was a luxury. Hitchcock, Ripley, “The Western Art Movement,” Century, Aug. 1886, 576.Google Scholar

65 Edward R. Warren to Halsey C. Ives, Mar. 22, May 5 (separate letter and telegram), 17, Oct. 20, 26, 1905, Ives to Warren, May 13, 17, June 12, 1905, Myron E. Pierce to Ives, Sept. 5, 1905, Pierce to Warren, July 7, 1905 (copy), American Free Art League Collection, Saint Louis Art Museum; Tomkins, Merchants and Masterpieces, 366. Warren, also a member of Boston's Union Club, posted some early league correspondence on club stationery.

66 Myron E. Pierce to Edward R. Warren, July 7, 1905 (copy), Warren to Halsey C. Ives, Oct. 26, 1905, American Free Art League Collection; American Free Art League, “Removal of the Duty on Works of Art,” Nov. 1, 1905, Gilder Collection; Pierce to William K. Bixby, Nov. 2, 1905; [Pierce?] to “Dear Sir,” Nov. 24, 1905; Warren to Frederick J. V. Skiff, Feb. 13, 1906; Program entitled “Benefit Entertainment for the American Free Art League By Saint Louis Artists,” American Free Art League Collection.

67 “Your Help Is Solicited by the American Free Art League…” (circular); Edward R. Warren to Halsey C. Ives, Feb. 27, 1906; “Vice President for Illinois” to Warren, Mar. 22, 1906; “The Duty On Art A Tax On Knowledge,” “Art Authorities Favor Free Art,” and “The Art Duty A Handicap on Education”; Myron Pierce to Ives, July 14, Aug. 13, 1906; and Agenda for Apr. 4, 1906 Meeting, all in American Free Art League Collection. An Apr. 2, 1906, League financial statement shows that the League had 1,201 subscribers at $1 memberships, with many members making supplemental subscriptions. Massachusetts, by far, had the most members with 801. Other states with large memberships included New York (161), Illinois (60), and Pennsylvania (45). No other state had as many as twenty members. Several states, such as West Virginia, Vermont, and Arkansas, had only one member, presumably the state vice president. Report in American Free Art League Collection.

68 Periwinkle, Pauline, “Work of the American Free Art League,” Brush and Pencil 17 (Mar. 1906): 103–06CrossRefGoogle Scholar; American Free Art League, “Removal of the Duty on Works of Art,” and Robert W. Ely, The League for Political Education, to Richard Watson Gilder, Nov. 15, 1905, both in Gilder Collection; New York Times, Nov. 26, 1905; Dennis, James M., Karl Bitter: Architectural Sculptor, 1867–1915 (Madison, 1967), 15, 104, 111.Google Scholar Pauline Periwinkle was the pseudonym for the Dallas, Texas, journalist and public crusader Sara Isadore Sutherland Callaway. See www. tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/CC/fcaba.html (accessed 10/12/2007).

69 “Petition of American Artists for Free Art,” Feb. 1, 1906, American Free Art League Collection; Edwin A. Abbey to Myron Pierce, Feb. 3, 1908, in Lucas, E. V., ed., Edwin Austin Abbey, Royal Academician: The Record of His Life and Work (New York, 1921), 2:444–45Google Scholar; New York Times, Feb. 23, 1896, 12.

70 New York Times, Mar. 19, 1909; Philadelphia Inquirer, Aug., 6, 1907, and Mar 11, Nov. 28, 1908; “The Tariff Blight on American Art,” Brush and Pencil 19 (Jan. 1907): 15–16. Calvin Tomkins notes that Morgan's collecting began during his childhood in Switzerland, that he applied over 50 percent of his wealth to acquiring art, and that “many scholars” believe that his was the “greatest private art collection ever assembled.” Tomkins, , Merchants and Masterpieces, 97.Google Scholar

71 In December 1905 and in February 1906, Lovering and Representative William Alden Smith, respectively, introduced free-art bills. In March 1906, Representative John S. Williams of Mississippi presented a measure to reduce the art duties. Congressional Record, 59th Cong., 1st sess., 47, 2741, 3936; “A bill to amend chapter eleven of the laws of eighteen hundred and ninety-seven entitled ‘An Act to Provide Revenue for the Government and to Encourage the Industries of the United States,’” American Free Art League Collection; “Repeal the Duty on Art Works,” Brush and Pencil 17 (Feb. 1906): 61; “Bill for Free Art Introduced,” and Allen, Thomas, “Arguments for Abolishing the Tariff on Art,” Brush and Pencil 17 (Mar. 1906): 100–02CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 106–12; T. Wayland Vaughan to Richard Watson Gilder, Feb. 5, 1905, Richard Watson Gilder Papers.

72 Myron E. Pierce to Henry C. King, Henry C. King Correspondence, Oberlin College Archives. King accepted and called art tariffs hostile to “art appreciation”; King to Pierce, Sept. 12, 19, 1907, King Correspondence.

73 “Art Notes Here and There,” New York Times, Apr. 4, 1909, X6; Beckwith Diary, Nov. 27, 28, 1908, and Sept. 27, 1909. See also Beckwith's earlier comments reported in the New York Times, Mar. 19, 1909.

74 U.S. House, Tariff Hearings Before the Committee of Ways and Means of the House of Representatives, 60th Cong., 2nd sess., H. Doc. 1505, 7205–19, 7224, 7226; Beckwith Diary, Nov. 28, 1908. To support its lobbying, the Free Art League asked each of its 500 directors to make personal financial contributions or persuade others to give. Edward R. Warren to Henry C. Kling, Jan. 5, 1909, King Correspondence.

75 U.S. House, Tariff Hearings, 7226–27, 7233–34, 7243–45, 7249, 7250–56, 7259, 7267–68.

76 U.S. House, Tariff Hearings, 7229–31, 7238–42, 7252, 7257, 7261–62, 7268. On Williams's art, see the New York Times, Jan. 24, 1909.

77 Congressional Record, 61st Cong., 1st sess., 155–57, 762, 3168, 3169, 3171.

78 Unaddressed meeting announcement, Mar. 23, 1909, signed by Edward R. Warren, American Free Art League Collection; “American Federation of Arts,” www.aaa.si.edu/collections/findingaids/amerfeda.htm (Oct. 12, 2007); De Forest, Robert W., “‘Free Art’ in the New Tariff: Why It Is Essential to the Growth of American Art Museums,” Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 4 (Apr. 1909): 60–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Preliminary Notice of Art Societies and a National Art Federation …” (printed document) in Cass Gilbert Collection, New York Historical Society, New York City.

79 Gould, , Reform and Regulation, 114–15Google Scholar; Congressional Record, 61st Cong., 1st sess., 761, 3169–71; Mowry, George E., The Era of Theodore Roosevelt, 1900–1912 (New York, 1958), 115–16.Google Scholar

80 Congressional Record., 61st Cong., 1 sess., 1521, 3167, 3171. Republican divisions over the tariff transcended the art rates. See Kleppner, , Continuity and Change, 135.Google Scholar

81 New York Times, Jan. 23, 1910, SM2; Tomkins, , Merchants and Masterpieces, 176–81.Google Scholar About 40 percent of Morgan's art collections, valued after his death at about $60 million, ended up in the Met's permanent collections.

82 Reid, B. L., The Man from New York: John Quinn and His Friends (New York, 1968), 4, 6–7Google Scholar, 12–17, 75–94, 141–49, 157–58, 369; Janis, and Londraville, Richard, “‘A First Class Fighting Man’: Frank Hugh O'Donnell's Correspondence with John Quinn,” Eire-Ireland 26 (Fall 1991): 60n63, 69–71Google Scholar; Crunden, Robert M., American Salons: Encounters with European Modernism, 1885–1917 (New York, 1993), 103, 204, 358–59Google Scholar; Alexander, , Here the Country Lies, 49.Google Scholar Quinn patronized U.S. landscapists, the Irish painter Jack Yeats, and European impressionists.

83 Congressional Record, 63rd Cong., 1st sess., 1223–25, 4146; Philadelphia Inquirer, Sept. 7, 1913, 6. The Inquirer reported that European art dealers were curtailing summer vacations and returning to their galleries to rush art to America on the assumption that the Senate's proposed increases would immediately become law.

84 Congressional Record, 63rd Cong., 1st sess., 4148, 4357–58.

85 Congressional Record, 63rd Cong., 1st sess., 4147, 4148, 4354–55, 4356; Widenor, William C., Henry Cabot Lodge and the Search for an American Foreign Policy (Berkeley, 1980), 2, 58.Google Scholar

86 Congressional Record, 63rd Cong., 1st sess., 4358.

87 De Forest, Choate, Quinn, Wilson, and Eliot documents all quoted in Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 8 (July 1913): 144–46; Circular quoted in Philadelphia Inquirer, Sept. 7, 1913, 6; “The Tariff on Art,” New York Times, Sept. 16, 1913, 10. Quinn's brief has been published in a bound volume that has no place of publication, no publisher, and no date of publication indicated. I borrowed a copy by interlibrary loan from the Kent State University Library.

88 U.S. Statutes at Large, 63rd Cong., 1st sess., vol. 38, 151, 166; New York Times, Sept. 26, 1913; John Quinn to May Morris, Dec. 16, 1893, quoted in Reid, , Man from New York, 158.Google Scholar George B. Tindall says that Underwood “dominated the debate” over the entire tariff by his “mastery of detail”; Tindall, , The Emergence of the New South, 1913–1945 (Baton Rouge, 1967), 11.Google Scholar

89 “Free Art for the People,” Outlook, Sept. 27, 1913, 162; Act of Sept. 21, 1922, Reid, , Man from New York, 368–69Google Scholar, 499, 618; Statutes at Large, 67th Cong., 2nd sess., 920, 934; Luke P. Bellocchi, Assistant Commissioner, Office of Congressional Affairs to Evan Bayh, Mar. 24, 2008, copy enclosed in Evan Bayh to Robert E. May, Apr. 11, 2008, in possession of the author.

90 Alexander, , Here the Country Lies, 6–7.Google Scholar An excellent introduction to the cultural side of the Young America movement is Widmer, Edward L., Young America: The Flowering of Democracy in New York City (New York, 1999).Google Scholar

91 Francis Davis Millet to “My dear Mr. Adams,” Dec. 9, 1910, Francis Davis Millet Papers, AAA, roll 1097.

92 Brown, Glenn, “Roosevelt and the Fine Arts,” pts. 1Google Scholar and 2, The American Architect, Dec. 10, 17, 1919, 711–19, 751–52; Grannis, Howard, “The Need of an Advisory Board on Federal Art,” Brush and Pencil 17 (June 1906): 217–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “Names Fine Arts Council,” New York Times, Jan. 21, 1909, 9; “Roosevelt Board Abolished,” New York Times, May 26, 1909, 1; www.cfa.gov/print/about/index.html (accessed June 1, 2008).