HONEST MONEY
HONEST MONEY
BY
ARTHUR I. FONDA
New York
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND LONDON
1895
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1895,
By MACMILLAN AND CO.
Norwood Press:
J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
PREFACE.
In an article in the "American Journal ofPolitics" for July, 1893, I gave a brief statementof the conclusions I had reached in anattempt to analyze the requirements of aperfect money.
The limits of a magazine article preventeda full discussion of the subject; many pointswere left untouched, and all quotations fromthe works of other writers, in support of thebrief arguments given, were of necessityomitted.
As the course of events since the articlereferred to was written has more fully confirmedthe conclusions stated therein, a desireto give the subject ampler treatment, whichits importance seems to demand, has led tothe writing of this little work.
viIf apology is needed for a further contributionto the mass of literature on the subjectof money, with which the country has of latebeen flooded, it must be found in the aboveexplanation of the reasons which have led tothe production of the present volume, coupledwith the fact that the questions involved arefar from being settled, and that the loudcomplaints, and the many financial schemesand plans, that have appeared all over thecountry make it probable that further legislationon the subject will be attempted in thenear future.
It must be conceded that there is somethingradically wrong in a country like theUnited States, rich in all of the necessariesand most of the luxuries of life, where naturehas been most bounteous, and where the notexcessive population is exceptionally enterprisingand industrious, when a large partof the people cannot at times find employment.When, with an abundance of unoccupiedland, and a great diversity of undevelopedviiresources, capital and labor—both anxiousfor profitable employment—cannot find it;and when men suffer for the necessaries oflife, not in one section only, but universallyand in large numbers, while our warehousesare filled with manufactured goods, and ourbarns and granaries are bursting with foodproducts. This is a condition that is certainlyas wrong as it is unnecessary.
Such a condition occurring once or twicein the history of a country might be attributedto accident, but recurring, as it does,periodically, it argues a fault in our economicsystem. So wide a disturbance, extended alsoto other countries, betokens a general cause.What that cause is, it is not difficult to perceive—allindications point to our monetarysystem as the chief source of the trouble.There are doubtless other causes that contributein some degree to create variationsin prosperity, but no other single cause, orcombination of causes, seems to us competentto account for the great fluctuations;viiiwhile the one we have cited alone may easilydo so.<