(p. 331) Through good times and bad, protected tariffs on imported steel rails had kept the domestic steel business strong–and the steelmakers, a major force in Pennsylvania politics, had responded by doing all they could to reelect pro-tariff Republicans. Three weeks before the 1884 elections, Carnegie had written his partners in Pittsburgh that “Bethlehem, Penna. Steel Co., Cambria, and Lackawanna I & C [Iron & Coal] have each given $ 5,000 to the Republican National Committee and we have been asked to give the same amount which I think is only fair.”
Nasaw, David. Andrew Carnegie. New York: Penguin Press, 2006.
(Note: bracketed words in original.)
(Note: the pagination of the hardback and paperback editions of Nasaw’s book are the same.)