![handle is hein.journals/pclscceqry20 and id is 1 raw text is:
March, 1905
POLITICAL SCIENCE
QUARTERLY
OUR MONETARY EQUILIBRIUM'
T WO months ago a political convention met in this city to
nominate candidates for president and vice-president, and
after struggling a day and a night over the monetary plank of its
platform, it decided to say nothing whatever on the subject. This
action was equivalent to saying that the standard of value is no
longer a matter of dispute. Monetary equilibrium has returned
to us after a disturbance of more than forty years. This is merely
saying that mental equilibrium has been restored on the subject
of money, for the disturbance has been psychological and soci-
ological rather than economical. Every person in his individual
capacity, in his own olKovoiLa, has always preferred gold to irre-
deemable paper; but multitudes in their collective capacity have
preferred the latter to the former and by carrying this preference
into their political action caused the disturbance. The dispute
has been a difference of opinion as to the meaning of the word
dollar, some holding that it signified a fixed quantity by weight of
the metal gold, while others contended that it meant also the gov-
ernment's stamp impressed upon various things.
In this prolonged contest the borrowing and lending sections of
the Union were arrayed on opposite sides, as was shown by the
votes which they cast. The states having a relatively dense popu-
lation and concentration of capital adhered to the gold standard.
They accepted irredeemable paper as a temporary necessity, but
were inflexibly opposed to any lasting change in the definition of
the dollar. Those states in which contrary conditions prevailed
1 Read before the Section of Economics, International Congress of Arts and
Science, Universal Exposition, St. Louis, Sept. 24, 1904.
Volume. XX]
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