Excelsior Publishing House, 26 City Hall Place, New York. The Trade Supplied by THE AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY And Its Branches. Entered at the Post Office, New York, N. Y., as Second Class Matter. The San Francisco News Comps 206 and 208 Post Street, PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. THE author presumes that a business man may be pardoned for writing upon a business question, when that question is paramount in public importance. He has tried to answer The Silver Question by arguments based both upon the truths of financial science and upon the principles which underlie the operation of what is called business. And, admitting shortcomings, he ventures to hope that a student in finance may find in this volume a sought-for portrayal of business ways; that a busy man of affairs may find herein some scientific points which may have hitherto escaped his attention; or, that a few of the readers of this book will be compensated for their trouble by the fastening more firmly together of the links in their own chain of evidence against silver fallacies. The author's position may be that iii |