Until Lately Connected with the United States Treasury Department, 1920 CALIFORNIA PUBLISHED BY IMPORTERS FIRST AID SERVICE 1423 NEW YORK AVENUE N. W. WASHINGTON, D. C. COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY All rights reserved, including Made in U. S. A. The Lord Baltimore Press BALTIMORE, MD., U. 8. A. K75 PREFACE It is now spring of the year 1920. A year and a half has elapsed since the close of hostilities of the World War. The demobilization of the armies engaged in that conflict has been practically completed and a general resumption of the civil and industrial activities of peace should be close at hand. In our own country, the United States of North America, we find that rapid strides are made in that direction; but that the high prices of war-time are still with us and that a gradual betterment of those conditions is hoped for. As to European countries the situation does not appear quite so promising. Having suffered considerably financially, their resources and credit are greatly exhausted and their progress towards financial and industrial recuperation is correspondingly impaired. Thus we learn from the daily Press that there is a great demoralization of the foreign exchanges; that the British Pound Sterling has been quoted at $3.25 or less at New York, as against its par value of $4.86; that the French franc has been quoted at $.10 as against its par value of $.193; that the German mark has been quoted at $.01 as against a prewar value of $.238 and that the foreign exchanges of other countries are likewise greatly depressed. Through it all we hear that long established Financial Systems of European countries are breaking down; that enormous quantities of legal tender paper currency have been issued; that there is insufficient gold available to support these issues on a pre-war basis; that available gold supplies are 442607 1 being hoarded; that credits abroad are exhausted; that commerce with foreign countries is becoming more difficult and that for want of a sound and stable currency at home, domestic commerce and industry, so necessary to an early recuperation of the nations, are impeded. Much is said about inflation of the currency; we are admonished to work and save; various schemes for the establishment of international currency and credits are brought forward, based upon a policy of borrowing from others, while no very determined effort is made to first build up at home. The all and overbearing importance of obtaining and holding gold as a reserve against an over-expanded paper currency is constantly before us. Already we hear it openly discussed abroad whether after all the maintenance of the gold reserve is not too great a task for the nations to bear, while serious thought is given to finding a solution of that great problem. We too may therefore well wonder as to the all absorbing necessity of maintaining the Gold Reserve Currency System of the present and whether after all it has not in reality outlived its day and generation and in the ever onward moving course of events, it is not about ready to give way to a more modern and more enlightened system that will best serve mankind. In the study of the following pages of this book let us therefore give serious thought to this problem, so that we may each and all more fully understand its importance and to be the better able to judge as to the soundness of the conclusions reached. Washington, D. C. GEORGE KOEHLER. |