Joseph P. Kennedy, an early Roosevelt supporter who was himself a wealthy speculator. In the campaign of 1932 Roosevelt had strongly criticized the tariff, or import tax, policies of the Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover administrations, blaming the decline of world trade on those Republican presidents. He appointed Senator Cordell Hull of Tennessee as secretary of state. A fervent free trader, Hull felt that his main duty should be to eliminate trade barriers by lowering import tariffs. Some of the early New Dealers did not share Hulls enthusiasm. For more than a year they were able to block his program, while Roosevelt concerned himself with purely domestic efforts. However, Hull stubbornly persisted in his course, eventually winning the presidents support and the passage of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, one of the most ingenious of the New Deal measures. This act did not attempt to alter existing import taxes by law. Hull and others knew very well how difficult it was to achieve tariff reform this way. Instead, the act authorized the president to negotiate agreements with other nations for a mutual lowering of import taxes. Such agreements did not have to be ratified by the Senate, and they could cut existing tariffs by 50 percent. The most-favored-nation clause promised that the United States would offer the same tariff rates to all countries with which it had signed a commercial treaty. If the United States lowered tariffs further in a treaty with another nation, it would have to lower tariffs for all nations with most-favored-nation status. By this method benefits from these agreements were slowly extended uniformly to all nations with whom such agreements had been made. Although Hull did not secure free trade, he did significantly lower tariff barriers. At the same time, he provided a method for taking tariff making out of the hands of Congress.The federal government also became involved with housing. In the depths of the depr...
