History of tariffs in the United States

# History of tariffs in the United States

## Abstract

Tariffs have historically served a key role in the trade policy of the United States. Their purpose was to generate revenue for the federal government and to allow for import substitution industrialization (industrialization of a nation by replacing imports with domestic production) by acting as a protective barrier around infant industries. They also aimed to reduce the trade deficit and the pressure of foreign competition. Tariffs were one of the pillars of the American System that allowed the rapid development and industrialization of the United States.

The United States pursued a protectionist policy from the beginning of the 19th century until the middle of the 20th century. Between 1861 and 1933, they had one of the highest average tariff rates on manufactured imports in the world. However American agricultural and industrial goods were cheaper than rival products and the tariff had an impact primarily on wool products. After 1942, the U.S. began to promote worldwide free trade. After the 2016 presidential election, the US increased trade protectionism.

According to Dartmouth economist Douglas Irwin, tariffs have served three primary purposes: "to raise revenue for the government, to restrict imports and protect domestic producers from foreign competition, and to reach reciprocity agreements that reduce trade barriers." From 1790 to 1860, average tariffs increased from 20 percent to 60 percent before declining again to 20 percent. From 1861 to 1933, which Irwin characterizes as the "restriction period", the average tariffs increased to 50 percent and remained at that level for several decades. From 1934 onwards, which Irwin characterizes as the "reciprocity period", the average tariff declined substantially until it leveled off at 5 percent.

## Tariff revenues

Tariffs were the greatest (approaching 95% at times) source of federal revenue until the federal income tax began after 1913. For well over a century the federal government was largely financed by tariffs averaging about 20% on foreign imports. At the end of the American Civil War in 1865 about 63% of Federal income was generated by the excise taxes, which exceeded the 25.4% generated by tariffs. In 1915 during World War I, tariffs generated 30.1% of revenues. Since 1935, tariff income has continued to be a declining percentage of Federal tax income.

## Historical trends

After the United States achieved independence in 1783, under the Articles of Confederation, the U.S. federal government, could not collect taxes directly but had to "request" money from each state. The power to levy taxes and tariffs, when proposed by the United States House of Representatives, was granted to the federal government by the United States Constitution after it came into effect in 1789. The new government needed a way to collect taxes from all the states that were easy to enforce and had only a nominal cost to the average citizen. The Tariff of 1789 was the second bill signed by President George Washington imposing a tariff of about 5% on nearly all imports, with a few exceptions. In 1790 the United States Revenue Cutter Service was established to primarily enforce and collect the import tariffs. This service later became the United States Coast Guard.

Many American intellectuals and politicians during the country's catching-up period felt that the free trade theory advocated by British classical economists was not suited to their country. They argued that the country should develop manufacturing industries and use government protection and subsidies for this purpose, as Britain had done before them. Many of the great American economists of the time, until the last quarter of the 19th century, were strong advocates of industrial protection: Daniel Raymond who influenced Friedrich List, Mathew Carey and his son Henry, who was one of Lincoln's economic advisers. The intellectual leader of this movement was Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury of the United States (1789–1795). Thus, it was against David Ricardo 's theory of comparative advantage that the United States protected its industry. They pursued a protectionist policy from the beginning of the 19th century until the middle of the 20th century, after the Second World War.

In Report on Manufactures which is considered the first text to express modern protectionist theory, Alexander Hamilton argued that if a country wished to develop a new activity on its soil, it would have to temporarily protect it. According to him, this protection against foreign producers could take the form of import duties or, in rare cases, prohibition of imports. He called for customs barriers to allow American industrial development and to help protect infant industries, including bounties (subsidies) derived in part from those tariffs. He also believed that duties on raw materials should be generally low. Hamilton argued that despite an initial "increase of price" caused by regulations that control foreign competition, once a "domestic manufacture has attained to perfection... it invariably becomes cheaper".

Alexander Hamilton and Daniel Raymond were among the first theorists to present the infant industry argument. Hamilton was the first to use the term "infant industries" and to introduce it to the forefront of economic thinking. He believed that political independence was predicated upon economic independence. Increasing the domestic supply of manufactured goods, particularly war materials, was seen as an issue of national security. And he feared that Britain's policy towards the colonies would condemn the United States to be only producers of agricultural products and raw materials.

Britain initially did not want to industrialize the American colonies, and implemented policies to that effect (for example, banning high value-added manufacturing activities). Under British rule, America was denied the use of tariffs to protect its new industries. Thus, the American Revolution was, to some extent, a war against this policy, in which the commercial elite of the colonies rebelled against being forced to play a lesser role in the emerging Atlantic economy. This explains why, after independence, the Tariff Act of 1789 was the second bill of the Republic signed by President Washington allowing Congress to impose a fixed tariff of 5% on all imports, with a few exceptions

Between 1792 and the war with Britain in 1812, the average tariff level remained around 12.5%. In 1812 all tariffs were doubled to an average of 25% in order to cope with the increase in public expenditure due to the war. A significant shift in policy occurred in 1816, when a new law was introduced to keep the tariff level close to the wartime level—especially protected were cotton, woolen, and iron goods. The American industrial interests that had blossomed because of the tariff lobbied to keep it, and had it raised to 35 percent in 1816. The public approved, and by 1820, America's average tariff was up to 40 percent.

In the 19th century, statesmen such as Senator Henry Clay continued Hamilton's themes within the Whig Party under the name " American System " which consisted of protecting industries and developing infrastructure in explicit opposition to the "British system" of free trade.

The American Civil War (1861–1865) was partially fought over the issue of tariffs. The agrarian interests of the South were opposed to any protection, while the manufacturing interests of the North wanted to maintain it. The fledgling Republican Party led by Abraham Lincoln, who called himself a "Henry Clay tariff Whig", strongly opposed free trade. Early in his political career, Lincoln was a member of the protectionist Whig Party and a supporter of Henry Clay. In 1847, he declared: "Give us a protective tariff, and we shall have the greatest nation on earth". He implemented a 44-percent tariff during the Civil War —in part to pay for railroad subsidies and for the war effort, and to protect favored industries. Tariffs remained at this level even after the war, thus the victory of the North in the Civil War ensured that the United States remained one of the greatest practitioners of tariff protection for industry.

From 1871 to 1913, "the average U.S. tariff on dutiable imports never fell below 38 percent gross national product (GNP) grew 4.3 percent annually, twice the pace in free trade Britain and well above the U.S. average in the 20th century," notes Alfred Eckes Jr, chairman of the U.S. International Trade Commission under President Reagan.

In 1896, the GOP pledged platform pledged to "renew and emphasize our allegiance to the policy of protection, as the bulwark of American industrial independence, and the foundation of development and prosperity. This true American policy taxes foreign products and encourages home industry. It puts the burden of revenue on foreign goods; it secures the American market for the American producer. It upholds the American standard of wages for the American workingman".

In 1913, following the electoral victory of the Democrats in 1912, there was a significant reduction in the average tariff on manufactured goods from 44% to 25%. However, the First World War rendered this bill ineffective, and new "emergency" tariff legislation was introduced in 1922, after the Republicans returned to power in 1921.

According to Ha-Joon Chang, the United States, while being protectionist, was the fastest growing economy in the world throughout the 19th century and into the 1920s. It was only after the Second World War that the U.S. liberalized its trade (although not as unequivocally as Britain did in the mid-nineteenth century).

## Colonial Era to 1789

In the colonial era, before 1775, nearly every colony levied its own tariffs, usually with lower rates for British products. There were taxes on ships (on a tonnage basis), import taxes on slaves, export taxes on tobacco, and import taxes on alcoholic beverages. The London government insisted on a policy of mercantilism whereby only British ships could trade in the colonies. In defiance, some American merchants engaged in smuggling.

During the Revolution, the British blockade from 1775 to 1783 largely ended foreign trade. In the 1783–89 Confederation Period, each state set up its own trade rules, often imposing tariffs or restrictions on neighboring states. The new Constitution, which went into effect in 1789, banned interstate tariffs or trade restrictions, as well as state taxes on exports.

## Early National period, 1789–1828

The framers of the United States Constitution gave the federal government authority to tax, stating that Congress has the power to "... lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States." and also "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." Tariffs between states is prohibited by the U.S. Constitution, and all domestically made products can be imported or shipped to another state tax-free.

Responding to an urgent need for revenue and a trade imbalance with England that was fast destroying the infant American industries and draining the nation of its currency, the First United States Congress passed, and President George Washington signed, the Hamilton Tariff of 1789, which authorized the collection of duties on imported goods. Customs duties as set by tariff rates up to 1860 were usually about 80–95% of all federal revenue. Having just fought a war over taxation, among other things, the U.S. Congress wanted a reliable source of income that was relatively unobtrusive and easy to collect. It also sought to protect the infant industries that had developed during the war but which were now threatened by cheaper imports, especially from England.

Tariffs and excise taxes were authorized by the United States Constitution and recommended by the first United States Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton in 1789 to tax foreign imports and set up low excise taxes on whiskey and a few other products to provide the Federal Government with enough money to pay its operating expenses and to redeem at full value U.S. Federal debts and the debts the states had accumulated during the Revolutionary War. The Congress set low excise taxes on only a few goods, such as, whiskey, rum, tobacco, snuff and refined sugar. The tax on whiskey was highly controversial and set off massive protests by Western Farmers in the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, which was suppressed by General Washington at the head of an army. The whiskey excise tax collected so little and was so despised it was abolished by President Thomas Jefferson in 1802.

All tariffs were on a long list of goods (dutiable goods) with different customs rates and some goods on a "free" list. Books and publications were nearly always on the free list. Congress spent enormous amounts of time figuring out these tariff import tax schedules.

With tariffs providing the basic federal revenue, an embargo on trade, or an enemy blockade, would threaten havoc. This happened in connection with the American economic warfare against Britain in the 1807–15 period. In 1807 imports dropped by more than half and some products became much more expensive or unobtainable. Congress passed the Embargo Act of 1807 and the Non-Intercourse Act (1809) to punish British and French governments for their actions; unfortunately their main effect was to reduce imports even more. The War of 1812 brought a similar set of problems as U.S. trade was again restricted by British naval blockades. The fiscal crisis was made much worse by the abolition of the First Bank of the U.S., which was the national bank. It was reestablished right after the war.

The lack of imported goods relatively quickly gave very strong incentives to start building several U.S. industries in the Northeast. Textiles and machinery manufacturing plants especially grew. Many new industries were set up and run profitably during the wars and about half of them failed after hostilities ceased and normal import competition resumed. Industry in the U.S. was advancing up the skill set, innovation knowledge and organization curve as they adapted to the Industrial Revolution's new machines and techniques.

The Tariff Act of 1789 imposed the first national source of revenue for the newly formed United States. The new U.S. Constitution ratified in 1789, allowed only the federal government to levy uniform tariffs. Only the federal government could set tariff rates (customs), so the old system of separate state rates disappeared. The new law taxed all imports at rates from 5 to 15 percent. These rates were primarily designed to generate revenue to pay the annual expenses of the federal government and the national debt and the debts the states had accumulated during the American War of Independence and to also promote manufactures and independence from foreign nations, especially for defense needs.

Hamilton believed that all Revolutionary War debt should be paid in full to establish and keep U.S. financial credibility. In addition to income in his Report on Manufactures Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton proposed a far-reaching plan to use protective tariffs as a lever for rapid industrialization. In the late 18th century the industrial age was just starting and the United States had little or no textile industry—the heart of the early Industrial Revolution. The British government having just lost the Revolutionary War tried to maintain their near monopoly on cheap and efficient textile manufacturing by prohibiting the export of textile machines, machine models or the emigration of people familiar with these machines.

Clothing in the early United States was nearly all hand made by a very time-consuming and expensive process—just like it had been made for centuries before. The new textile manufacturing techniques in Britain were often over thirty times cheaper as well as being easier to use, more efficient and productive. Hamilton believed that a stiff tariff on imports would not only raise income but "protect" and help subsidize early efforts at setting up manufacturing facilities that could compete with British products.

In 1789, Samuel Slater emigrated illegally, since he was familiar with textile manufacturing in Britain. Looking for opportunities he heard of the failing attempts at making cotton mills in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Contacting the owners he promised to see if he could fix their mills—they offered him a full partnership if he succeeded. Declaring their early attempts unworkable he proceeded from January 1790 to December 1790 to build the first operational textile manufacturing facility in the United States. The Industrial Revolution was off and running in the United States. Initially the cost of their textiles was slightly higher than the cost of equivalent British goods but the tariff helped protect their early start-up industry.

Ashley notes that:

Higher tariffs were adopted during and after the War of 1812, when nationalists such as Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun saw the need for more federal income and more industry. In wartime, they declared, having a home industry was a necessity to avoid shortages. Likewise owners of the small new factories that were springing up in the northeast to mass-produce boots, hats, nails and other common items wanted higher tariffs that would significantly protect them when the more efficient British producers returned after the war ended. A 10% discount on the customs tax was offered on items imported in American ships, so that the American merchant marine would be supported.

Once industrialization and mass production started, the demand for higher and higher tariffs came from manufacturers and factory workers. They believed that their businesses should be protected from the lower wages and more efficient factories of Britain and the rest of Europe. Nearly every northern Congressman was eager to logroll a higher tariff rate for his local industry. Senator Daniel Webster, formerly a spokesperson for Boston's merchants who imported goods and wanted low tariffs, switched dramatically to represent the manufacturing interests in the Tariff of 1824. Rates were especially high for bolts of cloth and for bar iron, of which Britain was a low-cost producer.

The culmination came in the Tariff of 1828, ridiculed by free traders as the " Tariff of Abominations ", with import custom duties averaging over 25 percent. Intense political opposition to higher tariffs came from Southern Democrats and plantation owners in South Carolina who had little manufacturing industry and imported some products with high tariffs. They would have to pay more for imports. They claimed their economic interest was being unfairly injured. They attempted to "nullify" the federal tariff and spoke of secession from the Union (see the Nullification Crisis). President Andrew Jackson let it be known he would use the U.S. Army to enforce the law, and no state supported the South Carolina call for nullification. A compromise ended the crisis included a lowering of the average tariff rate over ten years to a rate of 15% to 20%.

## Second Party System, 1829–1859

From 1832 to 1860, the Democrats tried to lower the tariff. The Tariff of 1832 eliminated certain features of the Tariff of 1828 that were disliked by manufacturers and the commercial East, but increased the duty on woolens. The Compromise Tariff of 1833 gradually reduced duties above 20% by removing one tenth from each impost in excess of that level at 2-year intervals. The Tariff of 1842 returned the tariff to the level of 1832, with duties averaging between 23% and 35%. The Walker Tariff of 1846 essentially focused on revenue and reversed the trend of substituting specific for ad valorem duties. The Tariff of 1857 reduced the tariff to a general level of 20%, the lowest rate since 1830, and expanded the free list.

The Democrats dominated the Second Party System and set low tariffs designed to pay for the government but not protect industry. Their opponents the Whigs wanted high protective tariffs but usually were outvoted in Congress. Tariffs soon became a major political issue as the Whigs (1832–1852) and after 1854, the Republicans wanted to protect their mostly northern industries and constituents by voting for higher tariffs and the Southern Democrats, which had very little industry but imported many goods voted for lower tariffs.

Each party as it came into power voted to raise or lower tariffs under the constraints that the Federal Government always needed a certain level of revenues. The United States public debt was paid off in 1834 and President Andrew Jackson, a strong Southern Democrat, oversaw the cutting of the tariff rates roughly in half and eliminating nearly all federal excise taxes in about 1835.

Henry Clay and his Whig Party, envisioning a rapid modernization based on highly productive factories, sought a high tariff. Their key argument was that startup factories, or "infant industries", would at first be less efficient than European (British) producers. American factory workers were paid higher wages than their European competitors. The arguments proved highly persuasive in industrial districts. Clay's position was adopted in the 1828 and 1832 Tariff Acts. The Nullification Crisis forced a partial abandonment of the Whig position. When the Whigs won victories in the 1840 and 1842 elections, taking control of Congress, they re-instituted higher tariffs with the Tariff of 1842. In examining these debates Moore finds that they were not precursors to Civil War. Instead they looked backward and continued the old debate whether foreign trade policy should embrace free trade or protectionism.

### Walker Tariff

The Democrats won in 1845, electing James K. Polk as president. Polk succeeded in passing the Walker tariff of 1846 by uniting the rural and agricultural factions of the entire country for lower tariffs. They sought a level of a "tariff for revenue only" that would pay the cost of government but not show favoritism to one section or economic sector at the expense of another. The Walker Tariff actually increased trade with Britain and others and brought in more revenue to the federal treasury than the higher tariff. The average tariff on the Walker Tariff was about 25%. While protectionists in Pennsylvania and neighboring states were angered, the South achieved its goal of setting low tariff rates before the Civil War.

### Low tariff of 1857

The Walker Tariff remained in place until 1857, when a nonpartisan coalition lowered them again with the Tariff of 1857 to 18%. This was in response to the British repeal of their protectionist " Corn Laws ".

The Democrats in Congress, dominated by Southern Democrats, wrote and passed the tariff laws in the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s, and kept reducing rates, so that the 1857 rates were down to about 15%, a move that boosted trade so overwhelmingly that revenues actually increased, from just over $20 million in 1840 ($ 0.6 billion in 2023 dollars), to more than $80 million by 1856 ($ 2.1 billion). The South had almost no complaints but the low rates angered many Northern industrialists and factory workers, especially in Pennsylvania, who demanded protection for their growing iron industry. The Republican Party replaced the Whigs in 1854 and also favored high tariffs to stimulate industrial growth; it was part of the 1860 Republican platform.

### Third Party System

After the Second Party System ended in 1854 the Democrats lost control and the new Republican Party had its opportunity to raise rates. The Morrill Tariff significantly raising tariff rates became possible only after the Southern Senators walked out of Congress when their states left the Union, leaving a Republican majority. It was signed by Democratic President James Buchanan in early March 1861 shortly before President Abraham Lincoln took office. Pennsylvania iron mills and New England woolen mills mobilized businessmen and workers to call for high tariffs, but Republican merchants wanted low tariffs.

The high tariff advocates lost in 1857, but stepped up their campaign by blaming the economic recession of 1857 on the lower rates. Economist Henry Charles Carey of Philadelphia was the most outspoken advocate, along with Horace Greeley and his influential newspaper, the New York Tribune. In February 1861, increases were enacted after Southerners resigned their seats in Congress on the eve of the Civil War.

Some historians in recent decades have minimized the tariff issue as a cause of the war, noting that few people in 1860–61 said it was of central importance to them. Compromises were proposed in 1860–61 to save the Union, but they did not involve the tariff. Arguably, the effects of a tariff enacted in March 1861 could have made little effect upon any delegation which met prior to its signing. It is indicative of the Northern industrial supported and anti-agrarian position of the 1861 Republican-controlled congress. Some secessionist documents do mention a tariff issue, though not nearly as often as the preservation of the institution of slavery. However, a few libertarian economists place more importance on the tariff issue. The arguments that tariffs were a major cause of the Civil War have become a staple of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy.

## 1860–1912

### Civil War

During the war far more revenue was needed, so the rates were raised again and again, along with many other taxes such as excise taxes on luxuries and income taxes on the rich. By far most of the wartime government revenue came from bonds and loans ($2.6 billion), not taxes ($357 million) or tariffs ($305 million).

The Morrill Tariff took effect a few weeks before the war began on April 12, 1861, and was not collected in the South. The Confederate States of America (CSA) passed its own tariff of about 15% on most items, including many items that previously were duty-free from the North. Previously tariffs between states were prohibited. The Confederates believed that they could finance their government by tariffs. The anticipated tariff revenue never appeared as the Union Navy blockaded their ports and the Union army restricted their trade with the Northern states. The Confederacy collected a mere $3.5 million in tariff revenue from the Civil War start to end and had to resort to inflation and confiscation instead for revenue.

### Reconstruction era

Historian Howard K. Beale argued that high tariffs were needed during the Civil War, but were retained after the war for the benefit of Northern industrialists, who would otherwise lose markets and profits. To keep political control of Congress, Beale argued, Northern Industrialists worked through the Republican Party and supported Reconstruction policies that kept low-tariff Southern whites out of power. The Beale thesis was widely disseminated by the influential survey of Charles A. Beard, The Rise of American Civilization (1927).

In the late 1950s historians rejected the Beale–Beard thesis by showing that Northern businessmen were evenly divided on the tariff, and were not using Reconstruction policies to support it.

### Politics of protection

The iron and steel industry, and the wool industry, were the well-organized interests groups that demanded (and usually obtained) high tariffs through support of the Republican Party. Industrial workers had much higher wages than their European counterparts, and they credited it to the tariff and voted Republican.

Democrats were divided on the issue, in large part because of pro-tariff elements in the Pennsylvania party who wanted to protect the growing iron industry, as well as pockets of high tariff support in nearby industrializing states. However President Grover Cleveland made low tariffs the centerpiece of Democratic Party policies in the late 1880s. His argument is that high tariffs were an unnecessary and unfair tax on consumers. The South and West generally supported low tariffs, and the industrial East high tariffs. Republican William McKinley was the outstanding spokesman for high tariffs, promising it would bring prosperity for all groups.

After the Civil War, high tariffs remained as the Republican Party remained in office and the Southern Democrats were restricted from office. Advocates insisted that tariffs brought prosperity to the nation as a whole and no one was really injured. As industrialization proceeded apace throughout the Northeast, some Democrats, especially Pennsylvanians, became high tariff advocates.

### Farmers and wool

The Republican high-tariff advocates appealed to farmers with the theme that high-wage factory workers would pay premium prices for foodstuffs. This was the "home market" idea, and it won over most farmers in the Northeast, but it had little relevance to the southern and western farmers who exported most of their cotton, tobacco and wheat. In the late 1860s the wool manufacturers (based near Boston and Philadelphia) formed the first national lobby, and cut deals with wool-growing farmers in several states. Their challenge was that fastidious wool producers in Britain and Australia marketed a higher quality fleece than the Americans, and that British manufacturers had costs as low as the American mills. The result was a wool tariff that helped the farmers by a high tariff rate on imported wool—a tariff the American manufacturers had to pay—together with a high tariff on finished woolens and worsted goods.

### U.S. industrial output

Apart from wool and woolens, American industry and agriculture—and industrial workers—had become the most efficient in the world in most industries by the 1880s as they took the lead in the Industrial Revolution. No other country had the industrial capacity, large market, high efficiency and low costs, or the complex distribution system needed to compete in most markets in the vast American market. Most imports were a few "luxury" goods. Indeed, it was the British who watched cheaper American products flooded their home islands. The London Daily Mail in 1900 complained:

We have lost to the American manufacturer electrical machinery, locomotives, steel rails, sugar-producing and agricultural machinery, and latterly even stationary engines, the pride and backbone of the British engineering industry.

Some American manufacturers and union workers demanded the high tariff be maintained. The tariff represented a complex balance of forces. Railroads, for example, consumed vast quantities of steel. To the extent tariffs raised steel prices, they paid much more making possible the U.S. steel industry's massive investment to expand capacity and switch to the Bessemer process and later to the open hearth furnace. Between 1867 and 1900 U.S. steel production increased more than 500 times from 22,000 tons to 11,400,000 tons and Bessemer steel rails, first made in the U.S. that would last 18 years under heavy traffic, would come to replace the old wrought iron rail that could only endure two years under light service.

In 1881, British steel rails sold for $31 a ton, and if Americans imported them they paid a $28/ton tariff, giving $59/ton for an imported ton of rails. American mills charged $61/ton and made a good profit, which was then reinvested into increased capacity, higher quality steels, higher wages and benefits and more efficient production. By 1897 the American steel rail price had dropped to $19.60 per ton compared to the British price at $21.00—not including the $7.84 duty charge—demonstrating that the tariff had performed its purpose of giving the industry time to become competitive.

The U.S. steel industry became an exporter of steel rail to England selling below the British price and during WW I would become the largest supplier of steel to the allies. From 1915 to 1918, the largest American steel company, U.S. Steel, alone delivered more steel each year than Germany and Austria-Hungary combined, totaling 99,700,000 tons during WW I. The Republicans became masters of negotiating exceedingly complex arrangements so that inside each of their congressional districts there were more satisfied "winners" than disgruntled "losers". The tariff after 1880 was an ideological relic with no longer any economic rationale.

### Cleveland tariff policy

Democratic President Grover Cleveland redefined the issue in 1887, with his stunning attack on the tariff as inherently corrupt, opposed to true republicanism, and inefficient to boot: "When we consider that the theory of our institutions guarantees to every citizen the full enjoyment of all the fruits of his industry and enterprise... it is plain that the exaction of more than is indefensible extortion and a culpable betrayal of American fairness and justice." The election of 1888 was fought primarily over the tariff issue, and Cleveland lost. Republican Congressman William McKinley argued,

Free foreign trade gives our money, our manufactures, and our markets to other nations to the injury of our labor, our tradespeople, and our farmers. Protection keeps money, markets, and manufactures at home for the benefit of our own people.

Democrats campaigned energetically against the high McKinley tariff of 1890, and scored sweeping gains that year; they restored Cleveland to the White House in 1892. The severe depression that started in 1893 ripped apart the Democratic party. Cleveland and the pro-business Bourbon Democrats insisted on a much lower tariff. His problem was that Democratic electoral successes had brought in Democratic congressmen from industrial districts who were willing to raise rates to benefit their constituents. The Wilson–Gorman Tariff Act of 1894 did lower overall rates from 50 percent to 42 percent, but contained so many concessions to protectionism that Cleveland refused to sign it (it became law anyway).

### McKinley tariff policy

McKinley campaigned heavily in 1896 on the high tariff as a positive solution to depression. Promising protection and prosperity to every economic sector, he won a smashing victory. The Republicans rushed through the Dingley tariff in 1897, boosting rates back to the 50 percent level. Democrats responded that the high rates created government sponsored "trusts" (monopolies) and led to higher consumer prices. McKinley won reelection by an even bigger landslide and started talking about a post-tariff era of reciprocal trade agreements. Reciprocity went nowhere; McKinley's vision was a half century too early.

The Republicans split bitterly on the Payne–Aldrich Tariff of 1909. Republican President Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909) saw the tariff issue was ripping his party apart, so he postponed any consideration of it. The delicate balance flew apart on under Republican William Howard Taft. He campaigned for president in 1908 for tariff "reform", which everyone assumed meant lower rates. The House lowered rates with the Payne Bill, then sent it to the Senate where Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich mobilized high-rate Senators.

Aldrich was a New England businessman and a master of the complexities of the tariff, the Midwestern Republican insurgents were rhetoricians and lawyers who distrusted the special interests and assumed the tariff was "sheer robbery" at the expense of the ordinary consumer. Rural America believed that its superior morality deserved special protection, while the dastardly immorality of the trusts—and cities generally—merited financial punishment. Aldrich baited them. His Payne–Aldrich Tariff Act of 1909 lowered the protection on Midwestern farm products, while raising rates favorable to his Northeast.

By 1913 with the new income tax generating revenue, the Democrats in Congress were able to reduce rates with the Underwood Tariff. The outbreak of war in 1914 made the impact of tariffs of much less importance compared to war contracts. When the Republicans returned to power they returned the rates to a high level in the Fordney–McCumber Tariff of 1922. The next raise came with the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 at the start of the Great Depression.

### Tariff with Canada

The Canadian–American Reciprocity Treaty increased trade between 1855 and its ending in 1866. When it ended, Canada turned to tariffs. The National Policy was a Canadian economic program introduced by John A. Macdonald 's Conservative Party in 1879 after it returned to power. It had been an official policy, however, since 1876. It was based on high tariffs to protect Canada's manufacturing industry. Macdonald campaigned on the policy in the 1878 election, and handily beat the Liberal Party, which supported free trade.

Efforts to restore free trade with Canada collapsed when Canada rejected a proposed reciprocity treaty in fear of American imperialism in the 1911 federal election. Taft negotiated a reciprocity agreement with Canada, that had the effect of sharply lowering tariffs. Democrats supported the plan but Midwestern Republicans bitterly opposed it. Barnstorming the country for his agreement, Taft undiplomatically pointed to the inevitable integration of the North American economy, and suggested that Canada should come to a "parting of the ways" with Britain. Canada's Conservative Party, under the leadership of Robert Borden, now had an issue to regain power from the low-tariff Liberals. After a surge of pro-imperial anti-Americanism, the Conservatives won.

Ottawa rejected reciprocity, reasserted the National Policy and went to London first for new financial and trade deals. The Payne Aldrich Tariff of 1909 actually changed little and had slight economic impact one way or the other, but the political impact was enormous. The insurgents felt tricked and defeated and swore vengeance against Wall Street and its minions Taft and Aldrich. The insurgency led to a fatal split down the middle in 1912 as the GOP lost its balance wheel.

## 1913 to present

Starting in the Civil War, protection was the ideological cement holding the Republican coalition together. High tariffs were used to promise higher sales to business, higher wages to industrial workers, and higher demand for their crops to farmers. Democrats said it was a tax on the little man. After 1900 Progressive insurgents said it promoted monopoly. It had greatest support in the Northeast, and greatest opposition in the South and West. The Midwest was the battle ground.

The tariff issue was pulling the GOP apart. Roosevelt tried to postpone the issue, but Taft had to meet it head on in 1909 with the Payne–Aldrich Tariff Act. Eastern conservatives led by Nelson W. Aldrich wanted high tariffs on manufactured goods (especially woolens), while Midwesterners called for low tariffs. Aldrich outmaneuvered them by lowering the tariff on farm products, which outraged the farmers. The great battle over the high Payne–Aldrich Tariff Act in 1910 ripped the Republicans apart and set up the realignment in favor of the Democrats.

Woodrow Wilson made a drastic lowering of tariff rates a major priority for his presidency. The 1913 Underwood Tariff cut rates, but the coming of World War I in 1914 radically revised trade patterns. Reduced trade and, especially, the new revenues generated by the federal income tax made tariffs much less important in terms of economic impact and political rhetoric. The Wilson administration desired a 'revamping' of the current banking system, "... so that the banks may be the instruments, not the masters, of business and of individual enterprise and initiative.".

President Wilson achieved this in the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Working with the bullish Senator Aldrich and former presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, he perfected a way to centralize the banking system to allow Congress to closely allocate paper money production.

The Federal Reserve Act, with the Sixteenth Amendment of the Constitution, would create a trend of new forms of government funding. The Democrats lowered the tariff in 1913 but the economic dislocations of the First World War made it irrelevant. When the Republicans returned to power in 1921 they again imposed a protective tariff. They raised it again with the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 to meet the Great Depression in the United States. But that made the depression worse. This time it backfired, as Canada, Britain, Germany, France and other industrial countries retaliated with their own tariffs and special, bilateral trade deals. American imports and exports both went into a tailspin.

The Democrats promised an end to protection on a reciprocal country-by-country basis (which they did), hoping this would expand foreign trade (which it did not). By 1936 the tariff issue had faded from politics, and the revenue it raised was small. In World War II, both tariffs and reciprocity were insignificant compared to trade channeled through Lend-Lease. Low rates dominated the debate for the rest of the 20th century. In 2017 Donald Trump promised to use protective tariffs as a weapon to restore greatness to the economy.

### Tariffs and the Great Depression

The years 1920 to 1929 are generally misdescribed as years in which protectionism increased in Europe. In fact, from a general point of view, the crisis was preceded in Europe by trade liberalisation. The weighted average of tariffs remained tendentially the same as in the years preceding the First World War: 24.6% in 1913, as against 24.9% in 1927. In 1928 and 1929, tariffs were lowered in almost all developed countries.

The Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act was signed by Hoover on June 17, 1930, while the Wall Street crash took place in the fall of 1929. Most of the trade contraction occurred between January 1930 and July 1932, before most protectionist measures were introduced, except for the limited measures applied by the United States in the summer of 1930. In the view of Maurice Allais, it was therefore the collapse of international liquidity that caused the contraction of trade, not customs tariffs.

Milton Friedman also held the opinion that the Smoot–Hawley tariff of 1930 did not cause the Great Depression. Douglas A. Irwin writes : "most economists, both liberal and conservative, doubt that Smoot Hawley played much of a role in the subsequent contraction."

Peter Temin, explains a tariff is an expansionary policy, like a devaluation as it diverts demand from foreign to home producers. He notes that exports were 7 percent of GNP in 1929, they fell by 1.5 percent of 1929 GNP in the next two years and the fall was offset by the increase in domestic demand from tariff. He concludes that contrary the popular argument, contractionary effect of the tariff was small. (Temin, P. 1989. Lessons from the Great Depression, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass)

William J. Bernstein wrote:

Between 1929 and 1932, real GDP fell 17 percent worldwide, and by 26 percent in the United States, but most economic historians now believe that only a minuscule part of that huge loss of both world GDP and the United States' GDP can be ascribed to the tariff wars... At the time of Smoot–Hawley's passage, trade volume accounted for only about 9 percent of world economic output. Had all international trade been eliminated, and had no domestic use for the previously exported goods been found, world GDP would have fallen by the same amount – 9 percent. Between 1930 and 1933, worldwide trade volume fell off by one-third to one-half. Depending on how the falloff is measured, this computes to 3 to 5 percent of world GDP, and these losses were partially made up by more expensive domestic goods. Thus, the damage done could not possibly have exceeded 1 or 2 percent of world GDP—nowhere near the 17 percent falloff seen during the Great Depression... The inescapable conclusion: contrary to public perception, Smoot–Hawley did not cause, or even significantly deepen, the Great Depression.

Paul Krugman writes that protectionism does not lead to recessions. According to him, the decrease in imports (which can be obtained by the introduction of tariffs) has an expansionary effect, i.e. favourable to growth. Thus in a trade war, since exports and imports will decrease equally, for the whole world, the negative effect of a decrease in exports will be compensated by the expansionary effect of a decrease in imports. A trade war therefore does not cause a recession. Furthermore, he notes that the Smoot–Hawley tariff did not cause the Great Depression. The decline in trade between 1929 and 1933 "was almost entirely a consequence of the Depression, not a cause. Trade barriers were a response to the Depression, in part a consequence of deflation."

### Trade liberalization

Tariffs up to the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, were set by Congress after many months of testimony and negotiations. In 1934, the U.S. Congress, in a rare delegation of authority, passed the Reciprocal Tariff Act of 1934, which authorized the executive branch to negotiate bilateral tariff reduction agreements with other countries. The prevailing view then was that trade liberalization may help stimulate economic growth. However, no one country was willing to liberalize unilaterally.

Between 1934 and 1945, the executive branch negotiated over 32 bilateral trade liberalization agreements with other countries. The belief that low tariffs led to a more prosperous country are now the predominant belief with some exceptions. Multilateralism is embodied in the seven tariff reduction rounds that occurred between 1948 and 1994. In each of these "rounds", all General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) members came together to negotiate mutually agreeable trade liberalization packages and reciprocal tariff rates. In the Uruguay round in 1994, the World Trade Organization (WTO) was established to help establish uniform tariff rates.

Currently only about 30% of all import goods are subject to tariffs in the United States, the rest are on the free list. The "average" tariffs now charged by the United States are at a historic low. The list of negotiated tariffs are listed on the Harmonized Tariff Schedule as put out by the United States International Trade Commission.

### Post World War II

After the war the U.S. promoted the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) established in 1947, to minimize tariffs and other restrictions, and to liberalize trade among all capitalist countries. In 1995 GATT became the World Trade Organization (WTO); with the collapse of Communism its open markets/low tariff ideology became dominant worldwide in the 1990s.

American industry and labor prospered after World War II, but hard times set in after 1970. For the first time there was stiff competition from low-cost producers around the globe. Many rust belt industries faded or collapsed, especially the manufacture of steel, TV sets, shoes, toys, textiles and clothing. Toyota and Nissan threatened the giant domestic auto industry. In the late 1970s Detroit and the auto workers union combined to fight for protection. They obtained not high tariffs, but a voluntary restriction of imports from the Japanese government.

Quotas were two-country diplomatic agreements that had the same protective effect as high tariffs, but did not invite retaliation from third countries. By limiting the number of Japanese automobiles that could be imported, quotas inadvertently helped Japanese companies push into larger, and more expensive market segments. The Japanese producers, limited by the number of cars they could export to America, opted to increase the value of their exports to maintain revenue growth. This action threatened the American producers' historical hold on the mid- and large-size car markets.

The Chicken tax was a 1964 response by President Lyndon B. Johnson to tariffs placed by Germany (then West Germany) on importation of US chicken. Beginning in 1962, during the President Kennedy administration, the US accused Europe of unfairly restricting imports of American poultry at the request of West German chicken farmers. Diplomacy failed, and in January 1964, two months after taking office, President Johnson retaliated by imposing a 25 percent tax on all imported light trucks. This directly affected the German built Volkswagen vans.

Officially, it was explained that the light trucks tax would offset the dollar amount of imports of Volkswagen vans from West Germany with the lost American sales of chickens to Europe. But audio tapes from the Johnson White House reveal that in January 1964, President Johnson was attempting to convince United Auto Workers 's president Walter Reuther, not to initiate a strike just prior the 1964 election and to support the president's civil rights platform. Reuther in turn wanted Johnson to respond to Volkswagen's increased shipments to the United States.

### 1980s to present

During the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations Republicans abandoned protectionist policies, and came out against quotas and in favor of the GATT/WTO policy of minimal economic barriers to global trade. Free trade with Canada came about as a result of the Canada–U.S. Free Trade Agreement of 1987, which led in 1994 to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). It was based on Reagan's plan to enlarge the scope of the market for American firms to include Canada and Mexico. President Bill Clinton, with strong Republican support in 1993, pushed NAFTA through Congress over the vehement objection of labor unions.

In 2000 Clinton worked with Republicans to give China entry into WTO and " most favored nation " trading status, i.e., the same low tariffs promised to any other WTO member. NAFTA and WTO advocates promoted an optimistic vision of the future, with prosperity to be based on intellectuals skills and managerial know-how more than on routine hand labor. They promised that free trade meant lower prices for consumers. Opposition to liberalized trade came increasingly from labor unions, who argued that this system also meant lower wages and fewer jobs for American workers who could not compete against wages of less than a dollar an hour. The shrinking size and diminished political clout of these unions repeatedly left them on the losing side.

Despite overall decreases in international tariffs, some tariffs have been more resistant to change. For example, due partially to tariff pressure from the European Common Agricultural Policy, US agricultural subsidies have seen little decrease over the past few decades, even in the face of recent pressure from the WTO during the latest Doha talks.

On March 5, 2002, President George W. Bush placed tariffs on imported steel.

#### Deindustrialization

The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, has claimed that free trade created a large trade deficit in the United States for decades which lead to the closure of many factories and cost the United States millions of jobs in the manufacturing sector. Trade deficits lead to significant wage losses, not only for workers in the manufacturing sector, but also for all workers throughout the economy who do not have a university degree. For example, in 2011, 100 million full-time, full-year workers without a university degree suffered an average loss of $1,800 (~$ 2,438 in 2023) on their annual salary. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the workers who lost their jobs in the manufacturing sector and who have to accept a reduction in their wages to find work in other sectors, are creating competition, that reduces the wages of workers already employed in these other sectors. The threat of relocation of production facilities leads workers to accept wage cuts to keep their jobs.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, trade agreements have not reduced trade deficits but rather increased them. The growing trade deficit with China comes from China's manipulation of its currency, dumping policies, subsidies, trade barriers that give it a very important advantage in international trade. In addition, industrial jobs lost by imports from China are significantly better paid than jobs created by exports to China. So even if imports were equal to exports, workers would still lose out on their wages.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, the manufacturing sector is a sector with very high productivity growth, which promotes high wages and good benefits for its workers. Indeed, this sector accounts for more than two thirds of private sector research and development and employs more than twice as many scientists and engineers as the rest of the economy. The manufacturing sector therefore provides a very important stimulus to overall economic growth. Manufacturing is also associated with well-paid service jobs such as accounting, business management, research and development and legal services. Deindustrialisation is therefore also leading to a significant loss of these service jobs. Deindustrialization thus means the disappearance of a very important driver of economic growth.

However, other groups such as the CATO Institute, a libertarian or right-leaning think tank, write the opposite. They have said that free trade is not a significant contributor to deindustrialization trends. Trade can lead to loss of low-skilled or superfluous manufacturing jobs, but these tend to be replaced by higher-paying, higher-skilled manufacturing jobs in other sectors where the U.S. has a competitive advantage. While trade may have exacerbated some aspects of the deindustrialization seen in America since the 1980s, increased productivity and factory automation played a much more significant role. Moreover, some aspects of deindustrialization are illusionary, as many factories moved out of high-visibility and concentrated urban areas to rural areas, thus giving an impression of jobs being lost when there simply moved elsewhere in the U.S.

According to the PIIE, a think tank promoting free trade, evidence shows that trade agreements do not have significant impacts on trade deficits, and can even close the trade gap between countries.

## Smuggling and Coast Guard

Historically, high tariffs have led to high rates of smuggling. The United States Revenue Cutter Service was established by Secretary Hamilton in 1790 as an armed maritime law and custom enforcement service. Today it remains the primary maritime law enforcement force in the United States.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is a federal law enforcement agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security charged with regulating and facilitating international trade, collecting customs (import duties or tariffs approved by the U.S. Congress), and enforcing U.S. regulations, including trade, customs and immigration. They man most border crossing stations and ports. When shipments of goods arrive at a border crossing or port, customs officers inspect the contents and charge a tax according to the tariff formula for that product. Usually the goods cannot continue on their way until the custom duty is paid. Custom duties are one of the easiest taxes to collect, and the cost of collection is small.

## Tariffs and historical American politicians

In 1896, the GOP platform pledged to "renew and emphasize our allegiance to the policy of protection, as the bulwark of American industrial independence, and the foundation of development and prosperity. This true American policy taxes foreign products and encourages home industry. It puts the burden of revenue on foreign goods; it secures the American market for the American producer. It upholds the American standard of wages for the American workingman."

### George Washington

"I use no porter or cheese in my family, but such as is made in America," the inaugural President George Washington wrote, boasting that these domestic products are "of an excellent quality." One of the first acts of Congress Washington signed was a tariff among whose stated purpose was "the encouragement and protection of manufactures." In his 1790 State of the Union Address, Washington justified his tariff policy for national security reasons:

A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies

### Thomas Jefferson

As President Thomas Jefferson wrote in explaining why his views had evolved to favor more protectionist policies: "In so complicated a science as political economy, no one axiom can be laid down as wise and expedient for all times and circumstances, and for their contraries."

After the War of 1812, Jefferson's position began to resemble that of Washington, some level of protection was necessary to secure the nation's political independence. He said:

experience has taught me that manufactures are now as necessary to our independence as to our comfort: and if those who quote me as of a different opinion will keep pace with me in purchasing nothing foreign where an equivalent of domestic fabric can be obtained, without regard to difference of price

### Henry Clay

In 1832, then the United States Senator from Kentucky, Henry Clay said about his disdain for "free traders" that "it is not free trade that they are recommending to our acceptance. It is in effect, the British colonial system that we are invited to adopt; and, if their policy prevail, it will lead substantially to the re-colonization of these States, under the commercial dominion of Great Britain." Clay said:

When gentlemen have succeeded in their design of an immediate or gradual destruction of the American System, what is their substitute? Free trade! Free trade! The call for free trade is as unavailing as the cry of a spoiled child, in its nurse's arms, for the moon, or the stars that glitter in the firmament of heaven. It never has existed; it never will exist. Trade implies, at least two parties. To be free, it should be fair, equal and reciprocal.

Clay explained that "equal and reciprocal" free trade "never has existed; it never will exist." He warned against practicing "romantic trade philanthropy... which invokes us to continue to purchase the produce of foreign industry, without regard to the state or prosperity of our own." Clay that he was "utterly and irreconcilably opposed" to trade which would "throw wide open our ports to foreign productions" without reciprocation.

### James Monroe

In 1822, President James Monroe observed that "whatever may be the abstract doctrine in favor of unrestricted commerce," the conditions necessary for its success—reciprocity and international peace—"has never occurred and can not be expected." Monroe said, "strong reasons... impose on us the obligation to cherish and sustain our manufactures."

### Abraham Lincoln

President Abraham Lincoln declared, "Give us a protective tariff and we will have the greatest nation on earth." Lincoln warned that "the abandonment of the protective policy by the American Government... must produce want and ruin among our people."

Lincoln similarly said that, "if a duty amount to full protection be levied upon an article" that could be produced domestically, "at no distant day, in consequence of such duty," the domestic article "will be sold to our people cheaper than before."

Additionally, Lincoln argued that based on economies of scale, any temporary increase in costs resulting from a tariff would eventually decrease as the domestic manufacturer produced more.Lincoln did not see a tariff as a tax on low-income Americans because it would only burden the consumer according to the amount the consumer consumed.By the tariff system, the whole revenue is paid by the consumers of foreign goods... the burthen of revenue falls almost entirely on the wealthy and luxurious few, while the substantial and laboring many who live at home, and upon home products, go entirely free.

Lincoln argued that a tariff system was less intrusive than domestic taxation: The tariff is the cheaper system, because the duties, being collected in large parcels at a few commercial points, will require comparatively few officers in their collection; while by the direct tax system, the land must be literally covered with assessors and collectors, going forth like swarms of Egyptian locusts, devouring every blade of grass and other green thing.

### William McKinley

President William McKinley stated the United States' stance under the Republican Party as:

Under free trade the trader is the master and the producer the slave. Protection is but the law of nature, the law of self-preservation, of self-development, of securing the highest and best destiny of the race of man. that protection is immoral.... Why, if protection builds up and elevates 63,000,000 of people, the influence of those 63,000,000 of people elevates the rest of the world. We cannot take a step in the pathway of progress without benefiting mankind everywhere

destroys the dignity and independence of American labor... It will take away from the people of this country who work for a living—and the majority of them live by the sweat of their faces—it will take from them heart and home and hope. It will be self-destruction.

He also categorically rejected the "cheaper is better" argument:

They say, 'Buy where you can buy the cheapest.' That is one of their maxims... Of course, that applies to labor as to everything else. Let me give you a maxim that is a thousand times better than that, and it is the protection maxim: 'Buy where you can pay the easiest.' And that spot of earth is where labor wins its highest rewards.

They say, if you had not the Protective Tariff things would be a little cheaper. Well, whether a thing is cheap or whether it is dear depends on what we can earn by our daily labor. Free trade cheapens the product by cheapening the producer. Protection cheapens the product by elevating the producer.

The protective tariff policy of the Republicans... has made the lives of the masses of our countrymen sweeter and brighter, and has entered the homes of America carrying comfort and cheer and courage. It gives a premium to human energy, and awakens the noblest aspiration in the breasts of men. Our own experience shows that it is the best for our citizenship and our civilization and that it opens up a higher and better destiny for our people.

### Theodore Roosevelt

President Theodore Roosevelt believed that America's economic growth was due to the protective tariffs, which helped her industrialize. He acknowledged this in his State of the Union address from 1902:

The country has acquiesced in the wisdom of the protective-tariff principle. It is exceedingly undesirable that this system should be destroyed or that there should be violent and radical changes therein. Our past experience shows that great prosperity in this country has always come under a protective tariff.

### Donald Trump

The Trump tariffs were imposed by executive order (not by act of Congress) during the presidency of Donald Trump as part of his economic policy. In January 2018, Trump imposed tariffs on solar panels and washing machines of 30 to 50 percent. He soon imposed tariffs on steel (25%) and aluminum (10%) from most countries. On June 1, 2018, this was extended on the European Union, Canada, and Mexico. Separately, on May 10, the Trump administration set a tariff of 25% on 818 categories of goods imported from China worth $50 billion (~$ 59.8 billion in 2023). The only country which remained exempt from the steel and aluminum tariffs was Australia. Argentinian and Brazilian aluminium tariffs were started on December 2, 2019, in reaction to currency manipulation.

### Joseph Biden

In May 2024, the Biden administration doubled tariffs on solar cells imported from China and more than tripled tariffs on lithium-ion electric vehicle batteries imported from China. It also raised tariffs on imports of Chinese steel, aluminum, and medical equipment. The tariff increases will be phased in over a period of three years.


# Metropolitan Collegiate Hockey Conference

## Abstract

The Metropolitan Collegiate Hockey Conference or MCHC is an ACHA Division 3 league made up of smaller colleges, universities, and community colleges in the Northeast United States. The league was originally formed in 1967-68 as the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Hockey League (MIHL). After a league name change to the BSMIHL (Bi-State Metropolitan Intercollegiate Hockey League) for the 1975-76 season, the league changed its name to its current moniker at the start of the 1976-77 season.

## Format

Teams play a 12-game league schedule with the top four teams advancing to the MCHC playoffs at the end of the regular season held during President's Day weekend in February.

## Conference Champions

- 2024 - Sacred Heart University

- 2023 - Sacred Heart University

- 2022 - Columbia University

- 2021 - Season Canceled Due to COVID-19

- 2020 - US Merchant Marine Academy

- 2019 - Fordham University

- 2018 - Fordham University

- 2017 - Ramapo College

- 2016 - Yale University

- 2015 - Stevens Institute of Technology

- 2014 - Fordham University

- 2013 - State University of New York Maritime College

- 2012 - County College of Morris

- 2011 - Wagner College

- 2010 - Fordham University

- 2009 - University of Albany

- 2008 - Farmingdale State College

- 2007 - University of Albany

- 2006 - Fordham University

- 2005 - University of Albany

- 2004 - Wagner College

- 2003 - County College of Morris

- 2002 - Wagner College

- 2001 - Wagner College

- 2000 - Stony Brook University

- 1999 - Wagner College

- 1998 - Wagner College

- 1997 - Wagner College

- 1996 - Marist College

- 1995 - Rutgers University

- 1994 - Rutgers University

- 1993 - Siena College

- 1992 - Marist College

- 1991 - Southern Connecticut State University

- 1990 - Rutgers University

- 1989 - Rutgers University / County College of Morris

- 1988 - Rutgers University

- 1987 - County College of Morris

- 1986 - Montclair State University

- 1985 - Manhattan College

- 1984 - Manhattan College / Southern Connecticut State University / Wagner College

- 1983 - Wagner College

- 1982 - Upsala College

- 1981 - Upsala College

- 1980 - Queens College

- 1979 - Queens College

- 1978 - Upsala College / Wagner College

- 1977 - Fairleigh Dickinson University / Iona College

- 1976 - Ramapo College / Rockland Community College

- 1975 - Fairfield University / Ramapo College

- 1974 - Fairfield University

- 1973 - Fairfield University

- 1972 - Nassau Community College

- 1971 - St. Francis College

- 1970 - St. Francis College

- 1969 - St. Francis College

- 1968 - Iona College


World Hockey Association

# World Hockey Association

## Abstract

The World Hockey Association (French: Association mondiale de hockey) was a professional ice hockey major league that operated in North America from 1972 to 1979. It was the first major league to compete with the National Hockey League (NHL) since the collapse of the Western Hockey League in 1926. Although the WHA was not the first league since that time to attempt to challenge the NHL's supremacy, it was by far the most successful in the modern era.

The WHA tried to capitalize on the lack of hockey teams in a number of major American cities and mid-level Canadian cities, and also hoped to attract the best players by paying more than NHL owners would. The WHA successfully challenged the NHL's reserve clause, which had bound players to their NHL teams even without a valid contract, allowing players in both leagues greater freedom of movement. Sixty-seven players jumped from the NHL to the WHA in the first year, led by star forward Bobby Hull, whose ten-year, $2.75 million contract was a record at the time. The WHA took the initiative to sign European players, ushering in a new era in North American hockey.

The WHA was chronically unstable, with franchises occasionally relocating or folding in the middle of the season. It had an acrimonious relationship with the NHL, resulting in numerous legal battles, as well as competition for control of players and markets. In spite of this, merger talks began almost immediately. NHL owners voted down a 1977 plan to merge six WHA teams (the Edmonton Oilers, New England Whalers, Quebec Nordiques, Cincinnati Stingers, Houston Aeros, and Winnipeg Jets) into the NHL before a 1979 merger was approved.

As a result, the WHA ceased operations, and four teams joined the NHL for the 1979–80 season: the Edmonton Oilers, New England (renamed Hartford) Whalers, Quebec Nordiques, and Winnipeg Jets. Of these four teams, two of the three Canadian teams — the Nordiques and Jets — eventually moved south to Denver and Phoenix, respectively, although the NHL would return to Winnipeg with the 2011 relocation of the Atlanta Thrashers, who would rename themselves to become the second incarnation of the Winnipeg Jets. The Arizona Coyotes suspended operations following the 2023–24 season with the team's hockey assets being sold to the expansion Utah Hockey Club. The Whalers later moved from Hartford to Raleigh, North Carolina and were renamed the Carolina Hurricanes. The Oilers are the only WHA merger team to retain both their original nickname and city. The final WHA game was played on May 20, 1979, as the Jets defeated the Oilers to win their third Avco World Trophy.

## History

### Founding

The World Hockey Association was founded in 1971 by American promoters Dennis Murphy and Gary Davidson. The men had previously been the founder and first president of the American Basketball Association, respectively. They quickly recruited Bill Hunter, president of the junior Western Canada Hockey League. Hunter and Murphy traveled across North America recruiting franchise owners, and by September 1971, had announced that the league would begin in 1972 with ten teams, each having paid $25,000 for their franchise.

The average NHL salary in 1972 was $ 25,000, the lowest of the four major sports, while each player was bound by a reserve clause, that automatically extended their contract by one year when it expired, tying them to their team for the life of their career. In October 1972, the WHA announced that it would not use the reserve clause, stating that "The reserve clause won't stand up to the scrutiny of... players, players associations, the United States Congress, the public, and the Supreme Court." The WHA also promised much higher salaries than the NHL offered, and by the time the league began play, it had lured 67 former NHL players to its league, including Bernie Parent, Gerry Cheevers, Derek Sanderson, J. C. Tremblay, and Ted Green. The biggest name signed was former Chicago Black Hawks star Bobby Hull, who agreed to a ten-year, $2.7 million contract with the Winnipeg Jets, the largest in hockey history at the time, and one that lent the league instant credibility.

The NHL tried to block several of the defections. The Boston Bruins attempted to restrain Sanderson and Cheevers from joining the WHA, though a United States federal court refused to prohibit the signings. The Black Hawks were successful in having a restraining order filed against Hull and the Jets pending the outcome of legal action the Black Hawks were taking against the WHA. The new league was eager for the court action, intending to challenge the legality of the reserve clause.

In November 1972, Judge A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. of the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia placed an injunction against the NHL, preventing it from enforcing the reserve clause and freeing all players who had restraining orders against them, including Hull, to play with their WHA clubs. The decision effectively ended the NHL's monopoly on major league professional hockey talent.

### Teams

On November 1, 1971, twelve teams were formally announced. They included cities without NHL teams such as the Miami Screaming Eagles, as well as teams in cities where the league's promoters believed there was room for more than one team, such as the Los Angeles Aces, Chicago Cougars, and New York Raiders. Two of the original twelve teams moved before the first season started: the Dayton Arrows became the Houston Aeros and the San Francisco Sharks became the Quebec Nordiques. The Los Angeles franchise then took the nickname Sharks to replace Aces. The Calgary Broncos and the Screaming Eagles folded outright, replaced by the Philadelphia Blazers and the Cleveland Crusaders.

Although the league had many players under contract by June 1972, including a few NHL stars such as Bernie Parent, many of them were career minor league and college players. The new league was not considered much of a threat, until Bobby Hull, arguably the NHL's top forward at the time, jumped over. Hull had not been thought to be seriously considering signing with the WHA, even though he was in contentious salary negotiations with the Chicago Black Hawks, and when he told reporters that he would only move to the WHA "for a million dollars", it was both intended by Hull and taken by his audience to be a joke since a million dollars at that time was considered to be a ridiculous amount of money for a hockey player. Nevertheless, the Winnipeg Jets offered Hull a five-year, one million dollar contract with a one million dollar signing bonus. Hull accepted the Jets' offer, sealing the deal in an elaborate signing ceremony at Portage and Main. Hull's move to the upstart league attracted a few other top stars such as Cheevers, Sanderson, and Tremblay.

The WHA officially made its debut on October 11, 1972, at the Ottawa Civic Centre, when the Alberta Oilers defeated the Ottawa Nationals 7–4. Although the quality of hockey in the early years was predictably below that of the NHL, the WHA had indeed made stars out of many players that had little or no playing time in the NHL.

The New England Whalers eventually won the WHA's inaugural championship, later renamed the Avco World Trophy when the Avco Financial Services Corporation became its main sponsor. However, the trophy had not yet been completed, and the Whalers skated their divisional championship trophy around the ice surface, much to the embarrassment of the WHA office.

### Problems

Right from the start, the league was plagued with problems. Many teams often found themselves in financial difficulty, folding or moving from one city to another, sometimes mid-season. Citing arena troubles, two of the original twelve teams, the Dayton Arrows and the San Francisco Sharks, relocated before the first season began, becoming the Houston Aeros and Quebec Nordiques, respectively. The Calgary Broncos and the Miami Screaming Eagles, folded outright before the first puck dropped, being replaced by the Philadelphia Blazers and the Cleveland Crusaders.

The New York Raiders, initially intended to be the WHA's flagship team, suffered from numerous problems. While they planned to play in the brand new Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Nassau County did not consider the WHA a major league and wanted nothing to do with the Raiders. The county recruited William Shea, leader of New York City's successful lobbying campaign to get baseball's National League to expand following the 1957 departures of the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants. Working with the NHL, Shea swiftly won over the initially reluctant president of the New York Rangers, Bill Jennings, who was persuaded that it would be better to accept competition from an NHL team that would at least be willing to pay his club compensation for sharing the Rangers' territory as opposed to a WHA team that would owe his franchise nothing. The NHL quickly awarded a franchise to Long Island, the New York Islanders, who locked up the Coliseum for their own use from 1972 onwards. The Raiders were first forced to rent space at Madison Square Garden, where they were tenants to the Rangers. The situation rapidly became untenable, with an onerous lease and poor attendance, so the three original owners defaulted and the league ended up taking control of the team midway through the season. The Raiders were sold after their inaugural season. They were renamed the New York Golden Blades for the 1973–74 season, but were forced into a Sundays-only home schedule due to the high price of rent and scheduling conflicts with other events at Madison Square Garden. This was not enough to save the team, and the league was forced to take over the franchise again 24 games into the second season. Realizing that it could not hope to compete with both the Rangers and the Islanders, the WHA moved the Golden Blades to New Jersey soon after taking control. Renamed the Jersey Knights, they played at the Cherry Hill Arena which had a slope in the ice surface, causing pucks to shoot upward from results of a pass or shot, chain link fencing instead of Plexiglas surrounding the rink, and inadequate, cramped changing and dressing facilities.

Ahead of the 1973–74 season, Toronto Maple Leafs owner Harold Ballard deliberately made the Toronto Toros ' lease terms at Maple Leaf Gardens as difficult as possible after they moved from Ottawa. The Toros were owned by John F. Bassett, son of Canadian media mogul John Bassett. The older Bassett had formerly been part-owner of the Leafs with Ballard and Stafford Smythe before falling out with his two partners. At the time of the Toros' lease at Maple Leaf Gardens, Ballard was serving a lengthy prison term for fraud and tax evasion and was unable to intervene; but by the time the Toros played their first game, Ballard had been paroled and had regained control of the Gardens. Much to Bassett's outrage, the arena was dim for the first game. Ballard also ordered the cushions from the home bench removed for Toros' games (he told an arena worker, "Let 'em buy their own cushions!"). It was obvious that Ballard was angered at the WHA being figuratively in his backyard, and took out his frustration with the renegade league on the Toros. These terms compelled Bassett to move the team to Birmingham after three seasons.

The league bottomed out in 1975–76 with its third expansion team, the Spurs. A mainstay of the minor Western Hockey League, they were originally supposed to join the NHL in the same way the Vancouver Canucks and California Golden Seals had in the preceding decade. When the NHL reneged on the agreement, and Spurs owner Ivan Mullenix was unable to negotiate an early entry into the NHL, he accepted an offer to join the WHA for the 1975–76 season. However, Denver residents felt betrayed after three years of hype for an NHL team. They did not consider the WHA a major league, and stayed away from Spurs games.

However, halfway through the season, the NHL's Kansas City Scouts began serious talks about moving to Denver. Knowing he could not even begin to compete with an NHL team, Mullenix began talks with a group of Ottawa businessmen who insisted the Spurs move immediately as a condition of further talks. As a result, the Spurs abruptly moved to become the Ottawa Civics while on a road trip. After only seven games as the Civics, the franchise folded when it became clear that the Ottawa group did not have nearly enough financing to buy the team. The Spurs/Civics franchise only played 41 games total, making them easily the shortest-lived franchise in WHA history. The NHL soon fulfilled its promise to Denver by moving the Scouts there to become the Colorado Rockies in the 1976 offseason.

Part of the financial trouble was attributed to the high player salaries. For instance, the Philadelphia Blazers signed Derek Sanderson for $2.6 million, which surpassed that of Brazilian soccer star, Pelé, making him the highest-paid athlete in the world at the time. Unfortunately, his play did not live up to the expectations of his salary, and between an early-season injury, intemperate remarks to the press, and Blazer financial troubles, Sanderson's contract was bought out before the end of the season.

As well, big stars lacked supporting players and the quality of the on-ice product suffered.

### Competing for talent

The WHA won several key victories, including a court ruling that prevented the NHL from binding players to its teams via the reserve clause, and the signings of more NHL stars such as Gordie Howe, Andre Lacroix, Marc Tardif, and in later years, Frank Mahovlich and Paul Henderson. Howe had been lured out of a two-year retirement for the chance to play alongside his sons, Mark and Marty, who opted to turn pro a year ahead of their NHL draft eligibility.

In the 1974–75 season, to broaden a depleted talent pool, the WHA began signing European players, which the NHL had largely ignored up to that time, in serious numbers, including stars such as Swedish Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson and Czech center Vaclav Nedomansky, who had just defected from Czechoslovakia. Winnipeg especially loaded up with Scandinavian players and became the class of the league, with Hedberg and Nilsson combining with Bobby Hull to form one of hockey's most formidable forward lines. Along with the mass import of European stars, Vancouver attempted unsuccessfully to lure Phil Esposito away from the NHL by offering a contract similar to that of Bobby Hull, with a million dollars upfront.

### International play

The 1972 Summit Series, which pitted Team Canada against the Soviets, did not permit WHA players, due to the decision of series organizer Alan Eagleson, an NHL agent who was influential in forming the Canadian team. Bobby Hull, one of the best WHA players, was ruled ineligible to play because of his defection from the NHL, despite being initially selected by coach Harry Sinden. Dennis Hull initially planned to boycott the event as well as a show of support for his older brother, but Bobby persuaded him to stay on Team Canada. Other WHA stars turned down included Gerry Cheevers, J.C. Tremblay and Derek Sanderson. Some NHL owners also threatened not to free their players to participate if WHA players were permitted.

The WHA organized the 1974 Summit Series against the Soviets, giving an opportunity for Hull and 46-year-old Gordie Howe to play for Canada against the Soviet team, which the Soviets won 4-1-3.

In the 1976 Canada Cup, the NHL and NHLPA broadened the scope of the competition, inviting to the tournament a number of hockey countries and allowing each invited country to send the best possible team they could muster, so this time WHA players were permitted. WHA players played on four of the tournament's six teams.

In December 1976 and January 1977, the Super Series '76-77 tournament took place, opposing the HC CSKA Moscow (Red Army) and WHA teams. The Red Army won the series 6–2.

### Decline and merger

By the 1976–77 season, it had become evident that many of the WHA's franchises were teetering on the verge of financial collapse, and that the (at one time) combined 32 teams of the NHL and WHA had badly strained professional hockey's talent pool.

In 1977, merger discussions with the National Hockey League were first initiated, with Houston, Cincinnati, Winnipeg, New England, Quebec, and Edmonton applying for entry to the NHL, who voted the proposal down. Merger discussions resumed in 1978, but Houston was not part of the proposal this time. During the final series of talks, Aeros owner Kenneth Schnitzer suggested to the NHL that either his team be admitted as an expansion team independent of a merger, or he would attempt to purchase an existing club and relocate it to Houston. Neither came to fruition, and as a result the Aeros elected to fold on July 6, 1978. Another proposal had the Edmonton Oilers and the New England Whalers moving to the NHL, with the Winnipeg Jets following a year later, but this was also not accepted by the NHL.

The final two seasons of the WHA saw the debut of many superstars, some of whom became hockey legends in the NHL, including Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Mike Liut, and Mike Gartner. The Birmingham Bulls alone featured future NHLers Rick Vaive, Michel Goulet, Rob Ramage, Ken Linseman, Craig Hartsburg, Rod Langway, Mark Napier, Pat Riggin and Gaston Gingras.

By the end of the final season, only six teams remained. Facing financial difficulty and unable to meet payrolls, the WHA finally came to an agreement with the NHL in early 1979. Under the deal, four WHA clubs – the Edmonton Oilers, New England Whalers (renamed the Hartford Whalers), Quebec Nordiques and Winnipeg Jets – joined the NHL. The other two WHA teams, the Cincinnati Stingers and Birmingham Bulls, were paid $1.5 million apiece in compensation. The NHL treated the new clubs' arrival as an expansion, not a merger, and refused to recognize any WHA records. While the four new clubs were allowed to stock their rosters through the expansion draft, NHL teams were allowed to reclaim players who had jumped to the WHA.

The WHA was able to extract three key concessions. First, the WHA teams were allowed to protect two goaltenders and two skaters to keep their rosters from being completely stripped clean by the NHL teams. Second, the NHL allowed all of the WHA's Canadian teams to be part of the deal. The NHL had originally been willing to take only the Oilers, Whalers, and Jets, but the WHA insisted that the Nordiques be included as well. Third, although the NHL had insisted on treating the deal as an expansion, it agreed to freeze the expansion fee for each team at $6 million U.S., the same fee paid by every other team that had joined the NHL in the 1970s. By comparison, when the Atlanta Flames were sold and moved to Calgary one year later, the sale was $16 million U.S.

The deal came up for a vote at the NHL Board of Governors meeting in Key Largo, Florida on March 8, 1979. The final tally was 12–5, one vote short of passage, as a three-quarters majority was required to permit a merger. The Boston Bruins, Los Angeles Kings, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs and Vancouver Canucks voted against the deal. The Bruins were not pleased with having to share New England with the Whalers. Los Angeles and Vancouver feared losing home dates with NHL teams from the East. Montreal and Toronto were not enamored at the prospect of having to split revenue from Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts six ways rather than three.

When a second vote was held in Chicago on March 22, 1979, Montreal and Vancouver changed their votes, allowing the deal to go forward. Vancouver and Los Angeles were won over by the promise of a balanced schedule, with each team playing the others twice at home and twice on the road. The Canadiens' owners, Molson Breweries, were feeling the effects of a massive boycott that originated in Edmonton, Quebec City, and Winnipeg and spread across Canada. With the boycott severely hurting Molson's sales, the brewer reached agreement with the owners of the three Canadian WHA teams to have Molson replace their competitors (and Nordiques owners) Carling O'Keefe as the exclusive beer supplier for the Oilers' and Jets' arenas; it is probable that this concession was made in exchange for the Canadiens' vote.

The agreement officially took effect on June 22, 1979 (three months to the day after the deciding vote). On that day, the WHA folded and the NHL formally granted expansion franchises to Edmonton, Hartford, Quebec City, and Winnipeg.

## Legacy of the WHA

On the ice, the WHA teams had proven themselves to be the NHL's competitive equals, winning more games than they lost in interleague exhibition games.

The WHA had many lasting effects on NHL hockey. The NHL used to recruit virtually all its players from Canada, but following the success of the Jets' Hedberg and Nilsson, scouts began looking overseas for the best players that Europe could offer. Teams such as the Whalers and Fighting Saints offered excellent opportunities for young American players, and several U.S.-born or -raised NHL stars of the early 1980s (such as Mark Howe, Rod Langway, Dave Langevin, Robbie Ftorek, and Paul Holmgren) had begun their pro careers in the WHA. As a result, the NHL evolved into a truly cosmopolitan league during the 1980s.

The WHA ended the NHL policy of paying its players only a fraction of the league's profits and, combined with the abolition of the reserve clause, led to much higher player salaries. Many great stars began their careers in the WHA, including Mark Howe, Wayne Gretzky, Mike Gartner, Mike Liut, and Mark Messier, who was the last WHA veteran to play in the NHL; he opened his professional career with 52 games with the Indianapolis Racers and Cincinnati Stingers in 1978–79, and played his last NHL game on April 3, 2004. The final active player and official in any on-ice capacity for the league was referee Don Koharski, who started as a linesman for the WHA and retired at the end of the 2008–09 NHL season.

The WHA instituted sudden death overtime for regular season games to break ties. If no team scored during a 10-minute overtime period, the game ended in a tie. In the 1983–84 season, the NHL then instituted a 5-minute sudden death overtime period to break regular season ties.

The WHA had experimented with blue colored pucks, which were supposedly easier for fans to see. The NHL did not adopt the blue pucks, but any remaining blue WHA pucks are highly sought after collectors' items.

### Fate of surviving teams

The former WHA clubs, by the terms of the expansion, could protect only two goalies and two skaters each in the player dispersal draft. The Jets posted a dismal nine wins in their second season (second-fewest all-time for a season in the NHL), and finished last. The other WHA teams did respectably well in their first year, with the Whalers and Oilers earning playoff berths. The Oilers chose to protect Wayne Gretzky in the dispersal draft, which would prove fortuitous. Gretzky and the Whalers' Gordie Howe were selected to the mid-season All-Star Game, respectively the second-youngest and the oldest ever to play in the match.

The 1980s was a successful period for the former WHA teams. The Oilers shattered numerous NHL records and amassed a Stanley Cup dynasty, winning five Cups in its first eleven seasons. The Jets of the 1980s, decimated by the dispersal draft, developed a solid nucleus of players that helped the club achieve respectable regular-season finishes. After missing the playoffs in their first NHL season, the Nordiques quickly became competitive, advancing as far as the third round of the playoffs in their third season. Quebec developed an intense rivalry with the Montreal Canadiens. The Whalers had similar rivalries with the Boston Bruins and New York Rangers, and skated to the 1986–87 Adams Division title.

In the 1990s, the former WHA clubs suffered from escalating player salaries (ironically, the same trend that was instigated by the WHA). The ex-WHA clubs based in Canada were also hit hard by the declining value of the Canadian dollar. The Nordiques moved to Denver in 1995 and became the Colorado Avalanche, where they have won the Stanley Cup three times (1996, 2001, 2022), the Winnipeg Jets moved to Phoenix in 1996 and became the Phoenix Coyotes, and the Hartford Whalers moved to North Carolina in 1997 and became the Carolina Hurricanes, where they have won the Stanley Cup in 2006. To date, the Oilers remain as the last ex-WHA team still in its original city, where they have won the Stanley Cup five times. Only the Jets (later the Arizona Coyotes) franchise never won the Cup, with their furthest advance in the Stanley Cup playoffs being the Western Conference Finals in 2012. Because of arena issues the Jets/Coyotes franchise suspended operations in 2024, the franchise folded two months later after a land auction was cancelled.

## Hockey Hall of Fame members

List of WHA players and executives inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame:

- Andy Bathgate, Vancouver Blazers

- Gerry Cheevers, Cleveland Crusaders

- Mike Gartner, Cincinnati Stingers

- Michel Goulet, Birmingham Bulls

- Wayne Gretzky, Indianapolis Racers, Edmonton Oilers

- Gordie Howe, Houston Aeros, New England Whalers

- Mark Howe, Houston Aeros, New England Whalers

- Harry Howell, New York Golden Blades/Jersey Knights, San Diego Mariners, Calgary Cowboys

- Bobby Hull, Winnipeg Jets

- Dave Keon, Minnesota Fighting Saints, Indianapolis Racers, New England Whalers

- Rod Langway, Birmingham Bulls

- Frank Mahovlich, Toronto Toros/Birmingham Bulls

- Mark Messier, Cincinnati Stingers, Indianapolis Racers

- Vaclav Nedomansky, Toronto Toros/Birmingham Bulls

- Bernie Parent, Philadelphia Blazers

- Jacques Plante, Edmonton Oilers

- Bud Poile, WHA executive vice-president

- Marcel Pronovost, coach-Chicago Cougars

- Maurice Richard, coach-Quebec Nordiques

- Glen Sather, Edmonton Oilers

- Norm Ullman, Edmonton Oilers

## Trophies and awards

This is a list of the trophies and awards handed out annually by the World Hockey Association.

- Avco World Trophy – Awarded to the playoff champion

- Gary L. Davidson Award / Gordie Howe Trophy – Most valuable player of the regular season

- Bill Hunter Trophy – Leading scorer of the regular season

- Lou Kaplan Trophy – Rookie of the year

- Ben Hatskin Trophy – Best goaltender

- Dennis A. Murphy Trophy – Best defenseman

- Paul Deneau Trophy – Most gentlemanly player

- Howard Baldwin Trophy / Robert Schmertz Memorial Trophy – Coach of the year

- WHA Playoff MVP – Most valuable player in the playoffs

## Timeline of teams

Three Canadian teams completed all seven WHA seasons based in the same city, and were the same three Canadian teams that ultimately joined the NHL. The other WHA team to enter the NHL, the Whalers, were the only other WHA team to play all of its home games over seven seasons within a relatively small geographical area, having moved 100 miles (160 km) from Boston to Hartford. Of the original 12 WHA franchises, only the Winnipeg Jets remained for all seven seasons without relocating, changing team names, or folding.

## WHA All-Star Game

Every season of the World Hockey Association had an All-Star game, but the format changed with regularity.

- 1972–73 Eastern Division 6, Western Division 2 @ Quebec

- 1973–74 Eastern Division 8, Western Division 4 @ St. Paul

- 1974–75 Western Division 6, Eastern Division 4 @ Edmonton

- 1975–76 Canadian-based teams (5) 6, US-based teams (9) 1 @ Cleveland

- 1976–77 Eastern Division 4, Western Division 2 @ Hartford

- 1977–78 AVCO Cup champion Quebec Nordiques 5, WHA All-Star team 4 @ Quebec

- 1978–79 WHA All-Star team vs Dynamo Moscow in a three-game series @ Edmonton. WHA won all 3 games 4–2, 4–2, 4–3


# Boxing at the 1964 Summer Olympics – Light welterweight

## Abstract

The light welterweight class in the boxing at the 1964 Summer Olympics competition was the fifth-lightest class. Light welterweights were limited to those boxers weighing less than 63.5 kilograms. 35 boxers from 35 nations competed.

## Sources