due to legislative errors of omission or commission. It is wise for those who aim to give the country a model system to endeavor to graft upon this great establishment a note-issuing function which will provide a sound, safe, elastic currency, free from the defects which experience has shown exist. Federation The establishment of a central or United States bank Probable lines for at the present or in the near future is altogether im- reform. probable and perhaps altogether undesirable. The existing national banks, so far as their note-issuing function is concerned, can be sufficiently welded together by uniform law and central supervision to make them practically one institution. Circulation can be made uniform and national in character, good beyond peradventure by means of a redemption fund and a guarantee fund, easily convertible by central redemption, sufficiently elastic to respond to the varying needs of trade by basing the same in whole or in part upon assets or credits, and by graduated taxation the volume may be centralizamade to contract, in order to avoid speculative redun- tion. dancy. In short, it can be made safe, convertible, elastic. All this can be done as well as with a United States bank. In fact, the whole system would amount practically to one bank so far as note-issues are concerned and at the same time by preserving the individuality of the different banks would leave to the various localities the individual enterprise, local pride, and efficiency of management born of local knowledge, which is a consideration of paramount importance in a country of such wide extent and diversified interests as ours. The labor of the past becomes the experience of the present and the habit of the future. Problems once solved and labor once satisfactorily done, we meet the same questions and the same labor as they recur, and solve them in the same way intuitively and without con not scious mental effort. Guided by knowledge born of experience, the greater portion of our day's doings are mechanical, perfunctory. Were we compelled to fix our mental attention upon each act we perform and ask and answer the question, "How shall this be done and why?" we would experience mental exhaustion before the day was half over. Force of habit is a conservator of strength and a great blessing, even though it too often constrains us to follow the beaten paths rather than make the effort necessary to reach a broader and a better way. Nations have their habits as well as individuals, and time and custom have fixed existing law with reference to finance with a good degree of firmness. Nevertheless, taught by experience, and prodded by the frequent commercial disturbances resulting therefrom, we may fairly hope that Congress will in the near future modify the subtreasury system and give to our currency a degree of elasticity. BIBLIOGRAPHY CHAPTER XX IT is proposed in this section to present a categorical list of books and other publications to guide the reader who may desire to consult original records and study the discussions of the several questions at greater length. The arrangement of the list will enable the reader to determine, without research and additional examination, which of the volumes are requisite for the pursuit of the specific subject upon which further information is desired. The history of the Colonial and Continental periods is not voluminous, and the official records are not only scant but in many particulars fragmentary; nevertheless, much may be gleaned from the publications named below. On the subject of COINAGE, the extracts from the Journals and manuscript reports of the Continental Congress appear in : — International Monetary Conference, 1878, Senate Ex. Doc., This also contains Robert Morris's plan for a coinage system, Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the same, the Reports of the Board of Treasury and the Ordinance on Coinage of the Continental Congress, which established the dollar unit. Unofficial publications are: History of American Coinage, David K. Watson, New York, 1899. Money and Banking, Horace White, Boston, 1896; revised 1902. The Early Coins of America, Crosby. United States Mint and Coinage, A. M. Smith, Philadelphia, Financial History of the United States, Albert S. Bolles, New Consult also the numbers of Sound Currency, semimonthly (later quarterly), published by the Reform Club, New York, 18951903. |