Woodrow Wilson (1913), FDR (1934) and Truman (1947) passed lower tariffs with Democratic congresses. I think it is difficult to make the case that Warren Harding and Herbert Hoover (with republican congressional support) were more progressive than Wilson, FDR and Truman (with Democratic congressional support).
"The tariff (Harding's 1921 tariff act) was supported by the Republican party and conservatives and was generally opposed by the Democratic Party and liberal progressives."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordney%E2%80%93McCumber_Tariff
"During the 1928 presidential campaign Hoover promised to raise tariff rates again." Hoover was pushing higher tariffs before the Depression started.
"In their certitude that tariff hikes were the answer, no matter what the question, Smoot’s Republicans resemble today’s Republicans, who put a similar faith in tax cuts."
(http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/eb6357c0-3d1a-11e0-bbff-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1EaoLpkGn)
"Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke against the act (Hoover's 1930 tariff) while campaigning for president during 1932. ... The Smoot-Hawley Tariff was a reflection of Republican Party policy. In his 1932 election campaign platform Franklin Delano Roosevelt pledged to lower tariffs. He and the now-Democratic Congress did so in the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot-Hawley_Tariff_Act
Historically lower tariffs have been a liberal policy, higher tariffs a conservative one. That is still the case in Europe where it's the conservative political parties (particularly those on the far right like the National Front) that propose dismantling the EU (with its free trade zone) and raising tariffs.
The same is true with immigration legislation. republicans Harding and Coolidge passed very very restrictive immigration laws in 1921 and 1924, while Democrats liberalized immigration laws in 1965.
The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the National Origins Act, and Asian Exclusion Act (Pub.L. 68-139, 43 Stat. 153, enacted May 26, 1924), was a United States federal law that limited the annual number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already living in the United States in 1890, down from the 3% cap set by the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921, according to the Census of 1890. It superseded the 1921 Emergency Quota Act. The law was aimed at further restricting the Southern and Eastern Europeans who were immigrating in large numbers starting in the 1890s, as well as prohibiting the immigration of Middle Easterners, East Asians and Asian Indians.
Democrats liberalized the immigration law in 1965.
"The 1965 act marked a radical break from the immigration policies of the past. The law as it stood then excluded Asians and Africans and preferred northern and western Europeans over southern and eastern ones. At the height of the civil rights movement of the 1960s the law was seen as an embarrassment by, among others, President John F. Kennedy, who called the then-quota-system "nearly intolerable". After Kennedy's assassination, President Lyndon Johnson signed the bill at the foot of the Statue of Liberty as a symbolic gesture."
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