ABSTRACT
Among the general public as among businessmen, attitudes toward foreign-trade policy were also related to ideology. Isolationism correlated with protectionism, internationalism with a low-tariff stand. There has been a historical trend away from protectionism in the business community. But, even though there was by the middle of the century more support for lowering tariffs than for raising them, most businessmen were not inclined to take a categorical stand on either side of this symbolic issue. The advocates of higher tariffs were less protected in their reading than those of lower tariffs, but they compensated by their perception of "the people." Foreign travel served to blunt the power of narrowly defined self-interest to shape a man's views. Those men who had traveled extensively seemed to be formulating their views with an eye to the self-interest of the United States rather than to the self-interest of a single product.
