In all of the foregoing a single text has been kept in mind: What has been the influence of the fair, the exhibition, the international exposition? Ready answers have been suggested by the several items of cost and attendance. Another answer may be divined in their frequency and universality. And at the close of this survey of more than a hundred years, probably the best answer of all is to be found in the efforts in this line with which one century is closed and another opened.
These include the Greater American Exposition at Omaha, July-November, 1899, a commercial success, and a revelation of trans-Mississippi pioneering enterprise. This was supplemented by the Export Exposition and World’s Commercial Congress, the first of the kind ever held under the joint auspices of the Commercial Museum and the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, in that city, in September-November, 1899. Then followed the Universal Exposition in Paris, in 1900. It was regarded as especially elaborate and successful. It beautified the Champ de Mars and Place des Invalides with handsome industrial palaces, brought into permanent existence the two Palaces of Fine Arts and the Alexander III. Bridge, lined the banks of the Seine with the “Street of Nations,” and swarmed the Trocadero with the world’s colonization. Over 50,000,000 witnessed its panoramic scenes. Its expense was largely provided for by prior sales of tickets on a bonded plan. The century turned with a prospective of the Pan American Exposition at Buffalo and International at Glasgow in 1901; the Ohio Centennial and International at Toledo in 1902; the International at Liege, Belgium, in 1903; and the Louisiana Purchase Centennial at St. Louis in 1904.
THE CENTURY’S PROGRESS IN COINAGE, CURRENCY, AND BANKING
By HON. BRADFORD RHODES,
Editor of “Banker’s Magazine.”
I. BANKS AND BANKING RESOURCES.
The history of nation building contains no parallel to the progress and development of the United States in the past one hundred years, and the most accurate and striking indication of this remarkable growth may be seen in the evolution of our currency and banking systems. As the variations in temperature and the changes in atmospheric pressure are measured by the thermometer and barometer, so are the fluctuations in a country’s wealth gauged by the banks and other financial institutions. Likewise the degree of civilization to which a country has attained is reflected by the perfection of its monetary machinery. After having tried nearly every unwise experiment condemned by the teachings of history, the United States has finally reached a position where its currency meets the two fundamental requirements of sound finance, namely, (1) the standard of value is that in use among the great commercial states of the world; (2) all of the currency is either directly or indirectly convertible into the standard coin.
Despite some minor faults in our financial system which make the maintenance of the parity of the several kinds of currency a cumbersome and expensive operation, and prevent the banks from rendering that full degree of assistance to commerce and industry which they would afford under laws that did not unnecessarily restrict their rightful functions, all our money responds to the two essential tests—safety and convertibility; while the banks have been among the most powerful factors in placing the United States in the front rank of the nations of the earth.
Our finances may be likened to a triangle, of which the base—the gold standard—has been in actual existence since 1879 (much longer than that in law), and the other side—safety—also assured, wanting but another addition—elasticity—to complete the symmetrical and perfect figure. That this last requisite of a sound currency will be supplied by the wisdom and ingenuity of our people, is not to be doubted.
There are two respects in which the financial policy of the United States is unique in comparison with most other great commercial countries; first, its gold reserve is unprotected by the devices in use elsewhere, as it does not charge a premium on gold as the Bank of France does when gold is wanted for export, nor can it protect the gold reserve by raising the rate of discount as the great banks of Europe may do; second, banking is practically free and anti-monopolistic. Under these conditions we have reached a place that may well excite the astonishment of the old-world countries. Our stock of metallic money, as estimated by the Director of the Mint, in 1898, was $925,000,000 in gold and $638,000,000 in silver. No other nation owned so much gold. Only one—China—owned as much silver, but it had no gold, and the per capita of silver in China is only $1.96 against $8.56 in the United States. Our stock of gold is more than double that of Great Britain, greater by a hundred millions than that of France, and also exceeds that of Germany and Russia. Of our silver stock, $561,500,000 is a full legal tender, and $76,700,000 a limited legal tender, the latter sum representing the subsidiary coins.