the Conservative. f
THE FOLIA AND FUTILITY OF
FIGHTING EVOLUTION.
iiv i.ouiH it. niiuicir , ov coroitAi > o HIMUNOS.
[ Address delivered nt the National Currency
Convention , Omaha , Neb. , September 18th ,
1898. ]
Mr. Louis R. Ehrich , of Colorado
Springs , Colo. , spoke at the National
Currency Convention on "The Folly and
Futility of Fighting Evolution , " as
follows :
Near the mouths of rivers in Siberia ,
imbedded in the fro/en soil and ice , have
been found the fossils of great primeval
animals , their heads all turned toward
the south. These victims of the glacial
period wore naturally unconscious of
the fact that they were overwhelmed by
evolutionary forces. When the future
financial historian shall delve in the
drift and deposit of our age he will ex
hume the intellectual remains of old
men from the west principally sena
tors of the United States who des
cended into their graves with their faces
all yearningly turned towards the re-
monetization of silver , little realizing
that the change in the monetary stand
ard of the civilized nations had come at
the resistless command of evolution. To
the younger men , whose minds are more
plastic , and consequently more ready to
recognize and accept a fact , we there
fore appeal , asking them to weigh our
argument in fair and unprejudiced
spirit , and then to determine whether
they are not logically forced to the con
clusion that the gold standard has come
as the result of a vast progressive change
in civilization , and that accordingly it is
foolish and hopelessly futile to contend
against this evolutional development.
The last five centuries have created a
new earth and a new man. The inven
tion of printing and the discovery of
America in the fifteenth century the
liberalization of religion in the sixteenth
the re-birth of science in the seven
teenth and the political enfranchise
ment of man achieved by the American
and French revolutions towards the
close of the eighteenth unitedly de
veloped these energizing forces which
were to give birth to the age of steam
and electricity in the nineteenth century.
It is a corollary of evolution that "the
greater amount of progress already
made , the more rapidly must progress
go on. " Accordingly , it is only after
the middle of our century that the cu
mulative effect of our progress created
those gigantic industrial and intellec
tual changes which are dazzling almost
to incredulity. Today the United States
alone has a greater international trade
than the whole world commerce of
100 years ago. In 1850 the world's com
bined imports and exports aggregated
4,160 million dollars. They are HOAV
over 17,000 millions. In 1840 the world's
railway mileage would not have reached
one-fifth around the earth. Today it
would encircle the earth over fifteen
times. In 1850 the tonnage of the
world's merchant navies was a little
over nine million tons. In 1897 it was
twenty-six and a half million tons. In
1850 the steam power of all nations was
equal to less than four million horse
power. At present it exceeds fifty
million horse-power. The value of in
dustries now dependent on steam is
estimated at over forty-five billion del
lars. In 1850 the total annual value of
the manufactures of the world was
aleut nine billion dollars. In 1888 it
was over twenty-three billions.
In 1850 the length of the telegraph
lines was too insignificant for statistical
record. In 1897
AN BKA OF
their length was
PROGRESS.
oyer 840 > 000 miles >
111 1876 there were 580 telephones in use
in the world. At the beginning of 1897
the number in use in the United States
alone was nearly 800,000. The early
postoffico statistics are lacking. But we
know that since 1881 the increase of
postal patronage is at the rate of nearly
100 per cent every seven years , and the
magnitude of this development can be
appreciated by the statement that in 1895
the number of letters , post cards and
papers transmitted was over seventeen
billions. So far as education is con
cerned , whereas the population of Eu
rope has increased only 40 per cent since
1840 , the number of children attending
school has increased 145 per cent. In
1840 the number of newspapers in the
world was about 4,000. At present they
number 40,000. An eminent thinker
has said that in the forty years between
1885 and 1875 the progress in physical
science was as great as during the 1,700
years between Hipparchus and Galileo.
In 1850 the wealth of the United States
was estimated at a little over seven bil
lion dollars. The census of 1890 placed
it at over sixty-two billions.
In the face of such startling facts one
must be afflicted with mental blindness
who does not clearly see that within the
last half century the organization of so
ciety has become infinitely more complex ,
that national and international compe
tition has grown far more keen , and
that there has been a marvelous develop
ment in what may be called the machin
ery of life. Money is a species of such
machinery. Would it not have been
passing strange if , in this ago of unpara
lleled progressno improvement had been
made in this most important tool of com
merce ? Let us now consider the pro
gress that has been made in the money
machinery of the world.
Through what may bo called the pre
servation of the favored metals in the
struggle of life ,
GOLD AND SILVER
nnd R Qr b
AS MONEY.
came the U0110y
standards of the progressive nations.
Both metals in high degree possessed
beauty , malleability , portability , dura
bility , and comparative stability of
value. Gold , however , is the more
. * "
beautiful , has greater specific gravity
lias far greater value proportioned to
its bulk , is better adapted for cheap
transportation , and has been more stable
in value. Mr. Darwin tells us "that the
slightest advantage in certain individ
uals over those with whom they come
into competition , or better adaptation in
liowever slight a degree to the surround
ing physical conditions , will turn the
balance. " It might therefore have
been foreseen that , if over gold and sil
ver should compete for the world's ac
ceptance as the single standard , gold
would prevail. For centuries the civil
ized nations tried to work with both
standards. Great inconvenience and
frequent embarrassment were exper
ienced. But the countries were to a
great degree isolated , international trade
was insignificant , the world was rela
tively poor , the stock of money slender ,
and the devices for supplementing me
tallic money almost unknown. Mr.
Wallace says that "whenever the phys
ical or organic conditions of the country
change , to however small an extent ,
some corresponding change will be pro
duced in the flora and fauna , since , con
sidering the severe struggle for exis
tence and the complex relations of the
various organisms , it is hardly possible
that the change should not bo beneficial
to some species and hurtful to others. "
The expanding commerce of England
towards the end of the eighteenth and
the beginning of the nineteenth cen
turies made the double standard , as the
contemporary records express it , "a
great inconvenience' " After extended
deliberation , the act of parliament of
1810 finally reduced silver to the sole
purposes of subsidiary coinage. In the
battle for supremacy in England gold
had won , and the single gold standard
theory was now launched.
Mr. Huxley says that the "struggle
for existence holds as much in the intel
lectual as in the
THE SINGLE GOLD
phy8ijal w orld .
STANDARD EN-
DORSED. i
and its right to exist is co-extensive with
its power of resisting extinction by its
rivals. " For fifty years after England
had adopted the single gold standard
the evolutionary struggle continued.
When the international monetary con
ference assembled in Paris in 1867 the
remarkable fact was disclosed that
although eighteen out of the twenty
nations represented were using the sil
ver or the double standard , their vote
was a practically unanimous endorse
ment of the desirability and approach
ing necessity of the single gold standard.
They were doubtlessly influenced by
evolutional facts which were so power
ful and so clearly defined as to have be
come irrestible. lu the first place , they
must have been impressed with the
growing relative instability of the two
metals. Silver , which had boon worth