Sherman Antitrust Act Takes Aim

1890

USA

US National debt $1,552,140,204.

The Sherman Antitrust Act was passed and is used against organized labor, not business.

Corporate trusts were supplanted by a new legal entity, the holding company. This was a company with the power to purchase other companies. One most famous holding company is General Motors, which purchased a number of automobile manufacturers.

The U.S. Congress enacted the McKinley Tariff, which allowed raw sugar to enter the United States free of duty and established a two-cent per pound bounty for domestic producers. The overall effect of the McKinley Tariff was to completely erase the advantages that the reciprocity treaty had provided to Hawaiian sugar producers over other foreign sugar producers selling in the U.S. market. The value of Hawaiian merchandise exports plunged from $13 million in 1890 to $10 million in 1891 to a low point of $8 million in 1892.

"In 1872 silver being demonetized in Germany, England, and Holland, a capital of 100,000 pounds ($500,000.00) was raised, Ernest Seyd was sent to this country with this fund as agent for foreign bond holders to effect the same object (demonetizations of silver)". — Senator Daniel of Virginia [1]

1892

Russia

Nikolai Dmyitriyevich Kondratieff was born.

[1] Senator Daniel of Virginia, May 22, 1890, from a speech in Congress, to be found in the Congressional Record, page 5128, quoting from the Bankers Magazine of August, 1873

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