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Editor’s note: The opinions in this article are the author’s, as published by our content partner, and do not necessarily represent the views of MSN or Microsoft.
After nearly a decade of good times, things, all of a sudden, looked wobbly. The stock market fell sharply. The president — a wealthy man who had never been elected to office before, but was very sure of himself, thank you very much — reassured Americans that all was well and the future bright.
Even so, the president thought one thing was needed to make things better: tariffs on America’s trade partners. Many economists and lawmakers argued against this, saying it would hurt trade, kill jobs and slow, if not contract, the economy. The president dismissed their reasoning, and into place the tariffs went.
As economic uncertainty mounted, many investors moved into gold, which was perceived as a safe haven (so much so that the Treasury feared it might run out of bullion).
And even though the economy had previously been good, many Americans feared immigrants were coming to take their jobs and sought to keep them out. Sure, Europeans were generally OK, particularly if they were from places like Norway, Sweden and Germany — in other words, if they looked “American.” The mood toward others was far less hospitable, and efforts were made to bar entire ethnic groups.