The Southern Tariff Association
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The Southern Tariff Association was a lobbyist organization founded by a group of Texas businessmen in September, 1920. Headed by John Henry Kirby of Houston and James Asbury Arnold of Kinmundy, Illinois, the organization's original purpose was to provide a non-partisan forum where economic matters concerning the general welfare of the South could be discussed regardless of political convictions. The association first took up the question of tariff revision in 1920. The association endorsed the Republican principle of a protective tariff in the presidential election of 1920, and tried to implement this doctrine for selected southern products through a program of propaganda and pressures upon Congressmen in Washington, D. C. Arnold and Kirby tried to mold public opinion in the South for their protectionist beliefs by holding tariff congresses in New Orleans, Louisiana, Atlanta, Georgia, and Greensboro, North Carolina. The effort was generally unsuccessful. [...]