NATIONAL CURRENCY AND BANKING SYSTEM.-BY WIL- LIAM P. ST. JOHN, PRESIDENT OF THE MERCANTILE NATIONAL BANK, NEW YORK WILLIAM M. STEWART FRED. T. DUBOIS PAGE Frontispiece. THIVER AN INTRODUCTION AND A LEGEND. A CHAPTER written to introduce a discussion such as the one which fills this volume can have but an unimportant function to perform, if it preserves the impartiality which is the measure of the real value of the work. It cannot elucidate the primary truths about the currency question, on which the adherents of all schools agree, for there are practically none such, even as primary as the definition of money itself. It cannot relate the history of money in the world, for the dispute begins with the beginnings of this history. It cannot even do much toward outlining the creation of our original monetary system, on the progress of legislation on financial questions in our own country, because it is on these very historical facts themselves that most pronounced differences arise. Almost all that can be done is to indicate something of the present supreme interest which the subject has created, and something as to the form which the discussion here has taken. When that is done, the reader will very properly prefer to turn to the arguments that bear directly on the case in dispute. The silver question has practically supplanted the tariff question in public interest and discussion. The financial stringency which began to make itself generally felt in 1893, and from which the country was so slow in recovering, caused every thoughtful man to seek an explanation of the condition, and finding the reason |